I know I said I might never gather my thoughts enough to finish this post, but in reality, the takeaway at the end was the whole reason I started it in the first place.  If God is after your integrity, and He uses the people around you to soften the edges and knock out the junk, how do you navigate the toxicity without getting burned?

Imagine for a moment that you have a friend who fiercely challenges your paradigm of what makes for a good friendship.  She is not someone you would normally have chosen to have in your inner circle, but for whatever reason, God brought her there.  But she is careless, egocentric, opinionated and oppositional.  You wrestle with God’s voice telling you to be grace and mercy to her, knowing that walking away from the relationship would indicate exactly the opposite, but rebelling against the ugliness she stirs up in you.

The closer the relationship, the deeper the bump.  That means the more anger, resentment, insecurity, or feelings of loss or rejection that get stirred up.  All of those things are indications of idols in our lives.  Think about that for a minute.  Those reactions point directly to the things in which we have put our hope and our trust.

It’s no wonder God pokes at them.  His purpose is to hone your character to be an increasingly clearer reflection of Himself, and to remove any god you have set before Him.  He uses the people around you to reveal where you are bitter, unforgiving, unmerciful, greedy, lustful, selfish… These are all things that tend to come naturally, so unless someone around us bumps it up, we don’t see it.

So, rather than be too quick to rid yourselves of those tough relationships, consider the opportunity.  This is particularly powerful in marriage and family relationships.  There is absolutely no other realm in which you will be so thoroughly challenged to let God transform your heart.

These are thoughtful steps you might want to consider before you bail.

1) Pay attention to the tension. What is this bumping up in you? Why are you rattled or concerned?

2) Name the emotions. Is what you’re feeling compatible with how God tells us to live as Christ-followers?

3) Pray through it.  Ask God specifically to show you what it is you’ve been idolizing (yourself? Your relationship? Your marriage covenant?) Ask Him to increase your awareness to both the tension and your options for relying on Him.

4) Practice leaning into Him. Fight the urge to respond the ways you’ve habitually responded, and start a new habit that leans hard into the Holy Spirit’s guidance in your life. Work to become a conduit of grace and mercy to the people around you.

5) Let it be THEIR choice to walk away.  Invite them to a better relationship, with good boundaries that do not tolerate inexcusable behavior toward you, but let them have the choice to walk away.

At the end of the day, it is better to have grown than it is to have made your life easier by cutting off the people whose path crosses yours.