relationships (Isaiah 59:1-8) Avoiding Toxicity

(Isaiah 59:1-8) 

1   Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short 
     That it cannot save;
     Nor is His ear so dull 
     That it cannot hear.
2   But your wrongdoings have caused a separation between you and your God,
     And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.
3   For your hands are defiled with blood,
     And your fingers with wrongdoing;
     Your lips have spoken deceit,
     Your tongue mutters wickedness.
4   No one sues righteously and no one pleads honestly.
     They trust in confusion and speak lies;
     They conceive trouble and give birth to disaster.
5   They hatch vipers’ eggs and weave the spider’s web;
     The one who eats of their eggs dies,
     And from what is crushed, a snake breaks out.
6   Their webs will not become clothing,
     Nor will they cover themselves with their works;
     Their works are works of wrongdoing,
     And an act of violence is in their hands.
7   Their feet run to evil,
     And they hurry to shed innocent blood;
     Their thoughts are thoughts of wrongdoing,
     Devastation and destruction are in their paths.
8   They do not know the way of peace,
     And there is no justice in their tracks;
     They have made their paths crooked,
     Whoever walks on them does not know peace.

TODAY'S THOUGHTS AND MEDITATION:

God sees and hears everything.  And because He is holy, He cannot have a relationship with sin.  But because He is also love, He desires that all come to know Him personally.  So, He is always there waiting for anyone who seeks out His salvation, peace and forgiveness, in order to have a close relationship with Him.

Having created us with a free will, the Lord never forces anyone to love Him back, and even once we are His children, He will never force us to be obedient.  As our patient and loving heavenly Father, He will discipline us, because He wants the best for us!  He wants to bless us with His goodness!

Why would we want to stray away from the goodness of God?  Why would we wait until we are in trouble, and then wonder why God is not responding as quickly as we want, or how we want?  Why would we not seek Him out for everything, all of the time and continue on in a close relationship with our heavenly Father?  It is up to us to go to Him.  God doesn't have to come to us - He is always right there!  Waiting!!!  And wanting us to go to Him for peace, help and guidance!!!

In the same way, just as sin impedes our prayers and interferes with our relationship with the Lord, sin interferes with us having good, healthy relationships with others!  Therefore we can see the importance of developing relationships with other steadfast believers, especially for marriage!  

Relationships are hard enough, but the closer one gets to an unbeliever, or a Christian who doesn't think it is all that important to adhere to God's word, the more difficult and divisive that relationship will become.  And unless the other person becomes a believer, and a sincere one at that, the one who will end up compromising is you, in order to keep the peace.  It's just not worth it!

I've had to distance myself from a few same-sex friends just because things got judgmental, contentious and toxic towards me.  I'm still "there" for them if they ever want to see me as a friend again (and not an enemy), but until that happens, I'm keeping my distance and I continue to pray for them.  The same thing goes with some Christian friends who decided that they really didn't care what God said about something, so they were just going to do what they wanted to do and believe whatever they felt was good for them.  All of these friendships shifted from being close to being estranged.

This is not to say that we should never have friends who are unbelievers, otherwise, how will we be able to share God's love and the gospel message.  We do need to set boundaries, though, and realize when we are getting too close to someone that we are relying on their interactions and entertaining their viewpoints.  The answer is to develop close relationships with believers who will help and encourage us to put God first in our lives, so that we are always growing closer to the Lord.  The closer we all grow to the Lord, the closer we will all grow to each other.