{"id":4698,"date":"2025-06-13T07:50:58","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T11:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4698"},"modified":"2025-06-13T07:50:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T11:50:58","slug":"vdps-very-draining-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/13\/vdps-very-draining-people\/","title":{"rendered":"VDPs Very Draining People"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

As recently as 1971, astronomers wondered if there really was such a thing as a \u201cblack hole.\u201d

That was the colloquial name given to an ultra-dense mass predicted by Einstein\u2019s general relativity equations. \u00a0

According to the reckonings of cosmologists, it might be possible for a massive star to burn through its enormous fuel supply of hydrogen in a few million years. Then, suddenly and dramatically, the stellar \u201cshell\u201d might collapse into an object so dense that even light would be unable to escape from its surface.

A spoonful of such material would outweigh our entire planet. Gravity would be so strong that a black hole would gobble up everything in its neighborhood, including myriad other stars.

Since these ideas sounded about as plausible as a middle school science fiction novel, most astronomers refrained from committing themselves to the black hole theory \u2013 until one actually turned up, that is.

Then it happened. Multiple researchers confirmed that Cygnus X-1, a powerful celestial source of X-rays, was the real deal \u2013 an object so dense that its surface can\u2019t even be seen, appearing to be nothing more than a giant tear in the cosmic curtain.

Fifty-four years have now come and gone. Astronomers have found more black holes. A lot more. For instance, there\u2019s an enormous one at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, which is thought to have ingested something like 4.3 million stars.

How many black holes are out there? In 2023, cosmologists, by combining everything we have learned from various strands of research, estimated that the cosmos contains at least 40 quintillion<\/em> black holes. That\u2019s the number 4 followed by 19 zeroes: 40,000,000,000,000,000,000 \u2013 a figure we hope never comes into play during Congressional discussions of America\u2019s national debt.

Celestial black holes may be a recent discovery. But relational black holes have been known ever since people began spending time with other people.

We\u2019re talking about individuals who have the unique ability to drain us of life-giving energy.

That\u2019s the hallmark of the Very Draining Person, the fifth and final relational category described in Gordon MacDonald\u2019s Anatomy of a Spiritual Leader<\/em>.

According to MacDonald, different people can have dramatically different effects on our passion to make it through a given day.

Very Resourceful People are the mentors who inspire or rekindle our vision.\u00a0Very Impactful People are the friends and colleagues who share our vision as they walk beside us.\u00a0Very Trainable People look to us as inspiring sources of fresh vision. Those are the kinds of people who \u201cpour into\u201d our lives.\u00a0Their effect on our energy is positive.

Very Nice People, however, are a different story.\u00a0The net effect of their presence, when it comes to stirring our spirits, is zero.

Which brings us at last to the VDP.\u00a0MacDonald assigns them an energy value of -1.\u00a0

Very Draining People are energy vacuums.\u00a0They are the black holes in the fabric of the relational cosmos.\u00a0When a VDP has you on the phone, 10 minutes feels like two hours.\u00a0When a VDP shows up unannounced at your front door and says, \u201cI was in the neighborhood, so I thought I\u2019d just drop by for a while\u201d you realize that whatever plans you had for the day have now been shoved to the back burner. \u00a0

What\u2019s remarkable, of course, is that the very same person who makes you want to hide behind the luggage in your bedroom closet and scream is somebody else\u2019s hero.

None of us is genetically encoded to be<\/u><\/em> a certain type all the time and in every relationship.

Part of the mystery of sharing life with other people are the surprising ways in which we find ourselves lifted up by some relationships and flattened by others.

VDP\u2019s, predictably, take a beating on the internet.

\u201cDon\u2019t waste another minute dealing with a toxic, negative, energy-draining person!\u201d says one guru.\u00a0\u201cRun for your life!\u201d advises another.

It\u2019s true that we cannot fix Very Draining People.\u00a0But we cannot run away from them, either.\u00a0\u00a0

\u201cFor God so loved the world\u2026\u201d<\/em> we read in John 3:16. This world that God loves is filled with draining people. What we can know for sure is that all of us<\/em> are in desperate need of God\u2019s love and grace \u2013 and we can go to bed tonight knowing that each of us is undoubtedly regarded as a VDP by at least one other person. \u00a0

So, what is God\u2019s call on our lives? We must grow in our ability to listen sympathetically and speak encouragingly, even to those who leave us exhausted.\u00a0

And we must also seek relational balance.

Most of us fail to balance our relational commitments.\u00a0Therefore our energy needs quickly become skewed.

MacDonald noticed that his own tendency in ministry was to focus on the two categories of people who had the least positive impact on his energy.\u00a0He felt that motivating the nice people and \u201csuccessfully ministering\u201d to the draining people was a strategy that would please God.\u00a0

As a consequence, he spent far less time with wise mentors, trusted friends, and eager apprentices \u2013 and only after years of frustration came to realize this was a formula for total depletion.\u00a0

So where does that leave us at the end of this week?

We can reaffirm the old saying that the best things in life are not things<\/em>.\u00a0They are life-giving relationships.

And we can ask God to help us find balance in the way we relate to others day by day.

Perhaps this prayer can help us find our way:

Lord, please open my eyes today.\u00a0Help me find the mentor who will renew my hope and enthusiasm. Show me how to be the kind of friend who breathes life into those who are discouraged. When others look to me for wisdom, help me generously share what I know.\u00a0More than anything else, help me be a spring of fresh water and not a drain.\u00a0May my heart overflow with your compassion toward every person I meet. In the name of your infinitely compassionate Son I pray, Amen.<\/em>

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here As recently as 1971, astronomers wondered if there really was such a thing as a \u201cblack hole.\u201d That was the colloquial name given to an ultra-dense mass predicted by Einstein\u2019s general relativity equations. \u00a0 According to the reckonings of cosmologists, it might be possible for a massive star to burn through… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[944,943,29],"class_list":["post-4698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-balance","tag-black-holes","tag-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4700,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4698\/revisions\/4700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}