No Longer Friends

Our friends are some of the most important people in our lives. As the saying goes, show me your friends and I’ll show you your future. The impact and influence that we allow these people to have is huge. That same level of influence, though, is what can make the wounds of a friend cut that much deeper. Not all of these wounds are bad. Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” Our friends should have the ability to hold us accountable and give us the honest truth, even when it hurts to hear. There are other wounds, though, that are a breach of trust and when those start to stack up, they can be hard to overcome.

It might help to change our perspective a little bit. Think about friendship like a startup company you are investing money in. Our investment here is comprised of time, energy, effort, emotion, etc. Now, the concept of investing is built on the expectation of return; down the line you will be getting something greater in return for what you have spent in your investment. Your friend is like a business partner; someone who has agreed to take this venture with you with the expectation that they’re level of investment will be equal to your own. As time goes on, the stocks in your friendship will rise and fall, hopefully with an overall trend going upward as the relationship continues to grow. You enjoy the successes, you take the losses and continue pushing forward. Then, one day you come to find out that your friend, your business partner, has been embezzling funds behind your back. They have lied, manipulated, and taken advantage of your investment. You thought you were taking on the losses together, that you were sharing this experience, but in reality, you were just being used. This is a picture of what betrayal can feel like in a friendship, but now the question is, “Where do you go from here?”

Going back to the business partner metaphor, the person breaking trust in the partnership thinks that by embezzling funds they will be able to get what they want more quickly, like deceit and selfishness are shortcuts to happiness and fulfillment. In the business world, this is a very shortsighted view as theft, breach of contract and fraud are definitely shortcuts, just towards a different and very undesirable location. When we treat our relationships like means to an end, we may feel like we’re getting something that makes us happy in the short term but, again, this is a shortsighted view as the longterm consequences leave us empty and unhappy. We can’t use people and expect that there will be no damage done to ourselves. When we are untrustworthy, we become suspicious and untrusting of everyone around us, especially those closest to us. When we easily take advantage of others, we expect that everyone else is just waiting to take advantage of us. When we allow corruption to direct our behavior in relationships, we are letting that corruption into ourselves and it will infect and destroy every area it touches.

So, what do you do when you find yourself on the receiving end of betrayal? While it may seem like our first reaction is typically anger and we need to focus on not allowing our anger to get the best of us, we have to recognize that anger is actually just a secondary emotional response. Before we feel anger, we feel hurt. Anger is a defensive response to that hurt. Being angry is responding sinfully out of that anger is so tempting because it carries with it a lie that we desperately want to believe; “This is how I take my power back.” When we’ve been taken advantage of, we can feel helpless and victimized, which doesn’t feel good at all. If we can somehow make them hurt the way that they made us hurt, then we can regain control while also enacting some well-deserved justice on them. When we take justice into our own hands like this, we might feel like we are getting justice for ourselves but we’re really just flipping the tables, becoming the abuser and making them the victim, because justice is not ours to define and dole out.

Rather than responding sinfully in anger, we need to train our instincts to take our hurts to the only one who can rightfully judge and who will, ultimately, bring true justice. In Romans chapter 12:14-21, we read:

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

This is one of the hardest principles to live out. We want so badly to be able to take vengeance into our own hands, but to not only forgive, but even bless those who have wounded us is the exact opposite of what we want! How could God expect this of us? Well, this is exactly how He responds to our betrayal towards Him. Rather than giving us the quick and decisive response that our rebellion deserves, He took the payment justice demands on Himself and offers us forgiveness and restoration of relationship.

It's important to recognize that those are two separate steps. We are commanded to forgive those who hurt us, but we’re not commanded to go back blindly extending friendship when there is no evidence that they won’t do it again. Abusers thrive on taking advantage of the unqualified and unmerited extensions of grace and restoration that they’re victims repeatedly give. That’s one of the reasons that they target specific people and why certain individuals seem like they continually find themselves in abusive relationships where they are regularly being taken advantage of. Taking it back to the business partner analogy, forgiveness doesn’t mean you keep making bad business deals with a partner who is clearly stealing from you, but it means that you will allow the courts to make the judgements about their actions and maintain your own integrity towards them.

It helps to recognize that the old saying is true; “Hurt people hurt people.” Viewing them through the lens of seeing how their harmful decisions are rooted in their own hurts and trying to take control of their lives before someone else ends up controlling them, allows us to recognize that, while they are still guilty perpetrators, they are also wounded victims of someone else’s sin in the past. In our fear or our anger, think about how frequently we have been down that same road before and how closely we got to going down that road again with them. We have been forgiven much, so we can extend that forgiveness, as well. Restoration may come down the line or not at all, but we will be able to move forward from this only when we are able to forgive and continue on with integrity.