Over the years, I have developed a distorted perception of what any healthy relationship should look like. All the myths I believed about relationships and my own brokenness made me think I should be friends with everyone who comes my way. And when it comes to godly relationships, I didn’t even know what that looked like. God had to work on me by letting me experience some things to get the knowledge and wisdom I needed. I had to learn what relationships are and what they aren’t. I also had to learn to develop tough skin and to see relationships the way God sees them. I’m grateful that God taught me through His Word and placed amazing people in my life to show me what healthy/godly relationships are.
One of the lessons that was essential for me to learn is that not everyone who says they know or love Jesus loves Him or has a relationship with Him. Back then, my discernment wasn’t sharp, so it saddened me when Christians disappointed me, and it took me years to wrap my head around this reality. Not that I believe they need to be perfect because I’m not perfect, but Christians shouldn’t be operating as worldly people do. I used to be so innocent, and I would give people the benefit of the doubt, especially if they call themselves Christians. However, I’ve learned that sometimes people may be telling me about their god, and I may think that they are talking about the God who created everything, but then I realize they aren’t. Their god has nothing to do with my God. They might be referring to a plant, a crystal, or nature as their god while I’m talking to them about the God who created all things.
Another lesson I have learned is that even if I have certain things in common with somebody else, that doesn’t mean I have to become friends with them. I have discovered that relationships shouldn’t be founded on what we have in common. Sometimes, some of these things we say we have in common might be habits we are no longer interested in. For example, if I used to drink or go to the club and meet someone else who still does these things, it is not something the two of us have in common because it is no longer part of my routine. The day I gave my life to Christ, I became a different person, and anything that tends to pull me away from God cannot be something that my relationships should be built upon; where all conversation is centered on that one thing in common, and God forbid if gossip is the thing we have in common, then all we will be doing is gossiping. We need to talk about our past and our old destructive habits to testify of the transformative power of God, not as reasons to build friendships. Often, we like to compromise the things we left behind, whether it is gossip, unforgiveness, or the spirit of lust, to please others or to avoid losing a relationship.
Also, knowing what our core values are can really help with toxic relationships. I must admit that I used to build relationships with no boundaries at all, completely unaware of what I was willing or unwilling to accept. And because I didn’t know what my core values were and had no boundaries, after many years I noticed that every relationship looked the same, felt the same, and eventually ended the same. I always found myself desperate for connections only to feel used, abused, broken, and emptied in the end. However, after God had mended the broken pieces of my heart and put me on a healing journey, which I didn’t even think I needed, I no longer go after toxic relationships. Now I know exactly what I will put up with and what I will not tolerate up front. I know this may come across as being arrogant or harsh, but that’s not the case at all. When we consider the psalmist David in Psalm 101, he made it clear to God what he will and won’t accept, and all because of his reverence for God. Through the years, I have also discovered that Christians will never fully know if Jesus is the Lord of their lives until they’ve reached a crossroad where they must choose between God and their friends or even family members. Will they obey God’s commands or the opinions of others? Here David says, “I hate what faithless people do, I will have no part in it. The perverse of heart shall be far from me. I have nothing to do with what is evil” (Psalm 101: 3). Was it because David was a mean and heartless king that he made such a statement? No, but he knew the danger in mingling with what is evil.
One thing I have learned is that each person will be held accountable to the truth they know, not what the other person doesn’t know. In other words, someone else can be doing the same wrong thing I did, but God will deal with me about it instead of the other person because I did it from a place of disobedience and they did it from a place of ignorance. This is why Jonah felt some way about God because of how He dealt with the people of Nineveh. He wanted God to punish them severely, but God saw that these people couldn’t tell their right hand from their left (Jonah 4: 10-11). All of us must give an account for what we know, and God knows what we know even when we pretend we don’t know. David went on to say in verses 7 and 8, “No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence. Every morning I will put to silence all the wicked in the land; I will cut off every evildoer from the city of the Lord.” Look how bold and adamant David was against toxicity in the land. And here is one of the biggest problems of our time: we would rather compromise than stand up for righteousness. For example, if someone repeatedly shows me that they are a liar, I don’t have to pray to confirm what I see and try to keep that relationship just for the sake of being called a Christian. And how many times do we say, ‘If someone shows you who they are, believe them,’ yet we keep enabling these behaviors? And please understand that I’m not saying that we mustn’t be merciful and forgiving. I believe we have to know when to rebuke and when to allow restoration to take place without going to either extreme, meaning being too lenient or too tough. When someone sins, we rebuke him. That doesn’t mean we have to hate that person or make them feel hopeless. And if they repent, we forgive them, but we do not hold their sins above their head (Luke 17:3). We see this example in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 5:4-5, where Paul wrote to the Corinthians about a brother who had sinned and commanded them to rebuke him. And because the man repented, Paul told the Corinthians not to punish him anymore, but to forgive and show him love (2 Corinthians 2:5-11). We know there is compassion, forgiveness, and grace, and we are called to demonstrate these things. However, we must also remember that even our heavenly Father will allow us to experience something painful to refine us, and that alone is His grace. Otherwise, we would have been completely lost in our iniquities. The truth is, we don’t really do the person or God any favor when we encourage sin. For instance, if your friend is disrespectful to their spouse and cheats on them and you are aware of their sins, will you pretend everything is fine just for the sake of the friendship? Will you favor the friendship so much that you would rather enable the destruction of his soul? If so, God cannot be glorified through you. This also reminds me of a story I was told a while back, about a mother who loved her lovely little girl so much that correcting her felt like a sin. Her daughter was very little and wanted to play around the hot stove. She would cry a lot when the mother wouldn’t let her; so, the mother gave in, thinking that her daughter would not go too close to the stove. Her daughter ended up having a huge scar on her face because she got burned from the hot stove. When she got older and had to deal with all kinds of criticism about her image, she resented her mother for the rest of her life for letting her play near the stove.
I believe this is no different from withholding the truth to make others feel comfortable or from fearing the loss of the relationship. Just as some say that when we get to heaven, some will come to others, thanking them for sharing the gospel with them, I believe some people will also say to others, ‘How come you knew about this gospel the whole time, and you never told me all about it?’ The Bible says in Proverbs 26:7, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful”. I have learned that at times, it is better to have hard conversations, to distance ourselves even from those we love dearly, if that would help them to repent and come out of their spiritual coma instead of allowing their souls to perish.
Many think that people who are in church shouldn’t have a strong cut-off game, because this makes them viewed as ungodly. However, I want you to consider what David said in a song he dedicated to God. David, the man after God’s own heart, said: “My eyes will be on the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me; the one whose walk is blameless will minister to me. Every morning I will put to silence all the wicked in the land. I will cut off every evildoer from the city of the Lord” (Psalm 101:6 & 8). So, David wouldn’t even allow such people to minister to him. The people could have seen David as an arrogant king because it was as if he were saying, ‘What can such people teach me or do for me?’ The thing is, people back then didn’t care about likes and emojis. And it was Jesus Himself who said to His followers, “Be careful! Guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6), knowing that their stand would and did cause friction.
I also believe that God has a strategy for every problem that we face in life. So, if you find yourself in a toxic relationship, the first and best thing to do is to consult God about it so He can show you how to deal with it through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Usually, it gets complicated when God asks us to do things concerning that relationship that were not in our agenda. Most likely, God would ask us to distance ourselves, especially if the connection is interfering with our spiritual growth. We cannot fear man, and if God tells us to distance ourselves from a relationship that interferes with His plan for our lives, we must do it without hesitation. In Acts 5:29, Peter and the other apostles answered the high priests and said, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”
I also believe that God can empower us to do everything with grace, even in releasing someone who is not meant to continue the journey with us. While some may have a demonic agenda, others might simply allow themselves to be under the influence of the enemy by ignorance, and God will give us the grace to release, forgive, or restore the relationship according to His will. At the end of the day, we have to guard our peace at all costs. Isaiah 30:15 says, “In quietness and in confidence is your strength.” We had to allow God to strip us of everything that cost us our peace, and we had to work on ourselves and give up the bad habits that entertained us. Therefore, we cannot allow others to steal our peace or destroy all the hard work we’ve done on ourselves with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Lastly, we must get rid of toxic relationships because God’s plan must supersede any other plan, including ours. It is not easy to surrender our plans to God’s, but His plan is always the best. Sometimes He might ask us to let people go without even receiving an apology from them. At times, we might even need to apologize for something we didn’t even do before God allows a separation to take place. And at times, we might be the ones who need to change to bring the correction needed in the situation, so we might even be the ones who need to be forgiven by the other person. Regardless of what God may ask of us to bring closure or reconciliation, His plan comes first, and we have to do His will with love. No matter how others may feel about our way of handling things, we have to stick to God’s plan, which will always be different than what they would expect because God doesn’t operate as we do. Those whom we believe are our best friends often operate outside of God’s kingdom. Therefore, their lifestyle will inevitably hinder our spiritual growth.
I believe a daily decision is essential on who and what we will allow to sit on the throne of our hearts. Is it going to be friends, family members, and material things, or is it going to be God? And if God tells us not to do something or not to associate with certain groups, will we do it, or will we need to find out what mama, aunties, cousins, and friends say about it first? This doesn’t mean we should live a boring life, but it means that we need to make sure that God remains in first place in our hearts and has the final say. Trust me when I tell you: God is the One who needs to be in first place, because everybody else will fail you.
So, while we keep God in first place in our hearts, we will say no to toxic relationships and yes to the healthy ones!
SCRIPTURES
“Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.” Proverbs 22: 24-25
“Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good morals.” 1 Corinthians 15:33
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