Never say never’ – absolute negatives and Faith

By Daniel Francis

I recently met with a friend, and it turned into a venting session. Sometimes we just need to get it out. He’s newly married and navigating this new dynamic, which comes with its challenges.

He went on to talk about his difficulties with domestic work. He admitted that he forgets to do the basic tidying up or chores from time to time, and his wife brought it to his attention. They had a constructive conversation about it, and he promised to do more and be more mindful about it.

Roughly two months after that discussion, he believed he was doing well. He thought that he was tidying up often. He stated that, within that period, he did the chores about 70 per cent of the time, which was an improvement from before, when he did them about 40-50 per cent of the time. A vast improvement in his eyes. “Not perfection, but an improvement,” he stated.

His wife came to him fuming because he had left a chore undone. So, within that roughly 30 per cent of the time where he might have been absent-minded, this was what she was truly angry about. In that heated moment, she said, “You NEVER tidy up behind yourself.”

Therein lay his grievance. The use of the word “never”. That one word discounted all the times he had done what he was supposed to do, with its implication he always did wrong, hence my meeting with him so he could vent.

That’s the issue with absolute negatives. An absolute negative is a statement or word like ‘never’, ‘always’, or ‘none’ to show a complete absence of something or to make a very emphatic claim. These words are sometimes good for emphasis but can be easily disputed and may not reflect reality.

The use of that word ‘never’ discredited all the times he did his chores and took all the credit for his past work. Listening to my friend speak, my mind went into a different place with this idea of absolute negatives and how we use it within our faith.

Oftentimes, when I speak to people who have strayed from religion, they speak in absolute negatives.

“The church people are judgemental and always gossip about you.”

“I keep praying, but God never answers my prayers.”

“When I need God, He’s never there.”

“I’m stuck in my ways, always doing the wrong thing, so why bother?”

It’s easy to generalise faith into these absolute negatives when we hold on to all the negative experiences we’ve had with our faith, but when we do that, we discredit all the good that God has done in our lives.

I’m sure for those whose faith has waned, if they took a hard look at their lives and made note of all the times God has stepped in to help, they would retract their absolute negative statement.

Discrediting His positive intervention in our lives because He did not act in the exact way we wanted, shows that for some of us, we don’t understand how God truly works.

Just because we pray for something does not mean we will get it. Just because we think we are moving with God does not mean we are. There might be a disconnect where we are leading ourselves and not being led by God.

Don’t let absolute negatives discredit the work that God is doing in your life. Don’t use them as an excuse to lose faith and grow further and further away from the Church and God.

Reclaim your faith by taking a proper bird’s-eye view and seeing the full perspective of how God is working in your life.

Be renewed in faith and know that He is always with you.

Daniel Francis is a millennial helping other millennials. He is a two-time author of the books The Millennial Mind and The Millennial Experience, and an entrepreneur. Over the past four years, he has served as a Personal Development Coach whose work targets Millennials and helps them tap into their full potential. He is also a self-publishing coach and has guided hundreds on self-publishing their book successfully.

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