There are several types of relationships that are liabilities, not assets. If you are going to develop healthy relationships, you first must cut off the unhealthy ones you have developed. How can you tell if a relationship is toxic? Here are three major indicators:
Constant Strife and Division. First, there will be constant strife and division. Amos 3:3 asks us, "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?" A healthy relationship is one in which there is a oneness of goals, purpose, values, and beliefs. God's Word also says, "Where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there" (James 3:16).
The Greek word for confusion means "unstable." The Bible tells
us that a double-minded man is "unstable in all his ways" (James
1:8). The situation is out of order and therefore out of control. God
is a God of order. He has set up lines of authority, and when those
lines are violated, the door is open to every type of evil spirit. You
don't get to choose the brand of evil spirit you want. When you get
out of line with the way God has designed things to work, the devil
has a legal right to touch you with any form of evil he wants.
Strife and confusion sap your energy and drain your creativity.
They take your focus off what God has for you.
People Who Knew You "Back When." One of the most dangerous
relationships is the one that holds you to your
past. The Bible tells us that when Jesus went to his "own
country," He taught, and the people were astonished, but
they were also "offended" at Him because they kept saying,
"Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't this the son of
Mary and the brother of James, Joses, Simon, and Judas?
He can't possibly have all this wisdom and do these
mighty works. We know Him. He's just one of us." And
Jesus could do no miracles there "because of their unbelief."
It wasn't that Jesus had lost any power in Himself.
He wasn't any less of who He was in his home country. It
was because of their, unbelief that He could not manifest
the fullness of Himself (see Matthew 13:53-58).
The associations of your past can drag you down and hold you
back. They can keep you from fulfilling your potential.
I'm not talking, of course, of relationships that you have entered
into with a covenant or relationships that God has ordained for your
life. You can't just casually walk away from a father or mother or
spouse or child. I'm talking about friendships and business associations
and casual acquaintances and distant relatives who remind you
continually of what people used to think of you. Those old opinions
that were not God's opinions are opinions that do not relate to your
tomorrow. They relate only to your yesterday.
The most dangerous violator of the heart is the person who tells you what you want to hear. It is the person who strokes your ego and tells you words of affection that you are desperate to hear, all in an effort to get what they want from you.
Violators take advantage of the "needs" in your life, especially the
needs to be loved and accepted. They aren't concerned about your
blessings or your destiny. They are concerned only about what they
want. They are takers, not givers.
Never lose your identity for another person's sake.
Never compromise your character for anyone.
You must continually take inventory of whether a person is drawing
more from you than the person is giving to you. A healthy relationship
is a relationship in which there is balance in giving and taking
. . . where there is mutual appreciation and a building up . . .
where there are honest words of appreciation without any taint of
manipulation.
The Steps to Cutting Off an Unhealthy Relationship
So what are the steps you must take to cut unhealthy relationships
out of your life?
First, you must identify and accept the reality of an out-of-balance
relationship. At times, you need to take stock of the situation
and admit to yourself that a relationship just isn't working. All of your
efforts at helping or rehabilitating a person have failed. It is at that
point that you need to give that person over to God. Notice that I
didn't say that you give up on the person. To give up is to walk away
and say, "I don't care what happens to you." To give a person "over to
God" is to walk away as you say, "I have done all that I can do. I'm
entrusting you to God from this point on."
When you give a person over to Almighty God, you are releasing
that person from your own heart to One who truly can heal the person,
who will never fail the person, and who is totally qualified to
counsel and guide and help the person. How many times can you tell
a person the same things over and over and over again? Some people
have been prayed for with the laying on of your hands so often that
your handprints are indelibly printed on them!
If you allow yourself to be drained and distracted by someone
you truly cannot help because that person does not truly want your
help-only your association-then you will not be in position to
help those who truly want your help more than they want your association.
Second, don't try to be God to another person. There's a huge
difference between helping a person and carrying a person. You
aren't the Holy Spirit. Don't enter into an enabling relationship in
which you come to feel totally responsible for a person's success or
failure.
Third, become comfortable with criticism. If you do have to
end a relationship, not everybody is going to be happy with your
decision. For that matter, not everybody is going to be happy with
you at any point or regarding anything! There's always going to be
somebody who wants you to do something other than what God is
leading you to do. Nobody can please all people all the time, everywhere.
Luke 6:26 tells us, "Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
for so did their fathers to the false prophets." Occasionally you need
to recognize that hurting people sometimes hurt people, and you
need to be brave enough and godly enough to say, "This relationship
isn't helping you or me. This relationship isn't healthy. We need to
put an end to this."
Fourth, progressively end unhealthy relationships. It takes emotional energy to end a relationship, and if you cut every unhealthy relationship out of your life at one time, you are likely to be overwhelmed by the loss. Cut unhealthy relationships out of your life one at a time until you can look around you and say, "All of my relationships are ones that are pleasing to God. All of my relationships are ones in which there is a mutual give-and-take, a mutual blessing, a mutual edification. I am on the same wavelength with those who are close to me when it comes to values, beliefs, and goals."
Fifth, don't burn bridges. When you dissolve a relationship, don't
do so in anger or bitterness. There is a way to walk away from a relationship
without words of hatred or criticism or the placing of blame.
At the same time, walk away from an unhealthy relationship with the
full intent that you will not revisit that relationship in the future. God
may lead you to have a relationship with that person down the line,
but you should not have the intent to come back to the relationship.
Make a clean break. Make a definitive break.
There may be a situation in which someone comes to you to
break off a relationship. Allow that break to occur. Don't keep hanging
on. Don't keep trying to mend fences that are twelve-foot-high
stone walls. Don't keep revisiting the relationship in your heart, looking
for a way back in. Allow the break to happen.
And then, move forward. If you continue to look back, you
won't be qualified or given the authority to possess what God has for
you. Look ahead, not back.
Every time you look back, you begin to question, "Did I do the
right thing?" You second-guess your today. You become hesitant
about your tomorrow. Leave the past behind. Move forward!
When my husband, Randy, and I left Washington, D.C., for
Tampa, Florida, we had a word from God and we knew that God had
called us, but we didn't know that twelve years later, there would be
fifteen thousand people who would call themselves members of
Without Walls Church. We didn't know there would be twenty thousand
people who would receive help from more than 240 outreach
ministries on a weekly basis.
On the way to Tampa, we were in South Carolina with a little
U-Haul trailer filled with a few little sentimental items, and we broke
down. I started thinking, Have we lost our minds? Have we made the
biggest mistake of our lives? A little straggling dog came up to our car
by the side of the road, and I began to feed it a few scraps of bread.
My husband, Randy, said to me, "You'd better not give all your bread
to that dog. It might be the only food you have for the next two
weeks." He meant it!
Don't look at what might have been, should have been, or could
have been! Look at what is still to be!
Go to Those Who Celebrate You. Why waste your life trying to get the
attention or win the affection of people who don't care about you?
Why spend your time, effort, and resources seeking acceptance from people who are so wrapped up in themselves that they can't accommodate anybody else in their lives?
Why spend your spiritual gifts on people who aren't at all capable of recognizing and appreciating the One who lives inside you?
Jesus told a parable in which a man gave a great feast and invited
many people to come. He sent his servant at the appointed time to
say to those who were invited, "Come, for all things are now ready."
But one by one, those who were invited made excuses. One had
bought some property, another a new yoke of oxen he needed to
"test," and another had just married.
Aren't those the things that people tend to value more than you
today? One person has a business that he values more than you,
another a new car or new boat or some other new "toy" of some value
that the person needs to "test out." Another has a new relationship
that is more important than the relationship with you.
Find the people who are starving for what you offer! Find people
who want who you are, what you give, and what you celebrate.
