Fight for your friends with forgiveness

Don’t throw away a relationship because it isn’t perfect. No relationship is.

Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. (Colossians 3:13)

Once you have found the person who is going to be your Forever Friend, you can have confidence that nothing will ever go wrong. Right? You can trust that your Friend will never do anything to hurt your feelings? That they will always act selflessly? That they will consistently put you first in the relationship?

Okay, well, one, do you hold yourself to those expectations? No, of course you don’t. Nobody can live like that. None of us are perfect enough to constantly, consistently put everyone around us first all the time. For one thing, we don’t have capacity to self-sacrifice every day; we run out of self.

Even in the most committed relationships, you’re going to hurt each other. You’re going to say things that frustrate, do things that irritate, and forget important events that your friends were counting on you remembering.

What happens when that happens? Do you walk away from the friendship? Do you storm out of the community because you feel hurt or overlooked?

I hope not.

In every relationship, God commands us to offer forgiveness. Seek to understand why your friend has done what they’ve done. Remember, real love makes allowances for each other’s faults and doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. That’s what forgiveness looks like.

Don’t throw away a relationship because it isn’t perfect. No relationship is.

But forgiveness is dangerous, isn’t it? When someone hurts you and you keep forgiving them, doesn’t that give them permission to treat you like a door mat?

No. If you are hesitant to forgive someone for that reason, you need to understand the difference between forgiveness and restoration. God doesn’t want you to allow a serial abuser into your life. Serial abusers are fools, and the Bible constantly cautions us to stay away from fools.

Jesus was all about forgiveness and grace with every person He encountered, but He never made excuses for their behaviors. He pointed out what they had done that was sinful and called them to turn away from it. He always offers grace, but He never condoned sinful, foolish, abusive behavior. Stay away from people like that.

But you can stay away from someone and still forgive them.

Forgiveness is setting another person free. It’s not requiring them to pay for the hurt that they caused, not holding it against them. Because, frankly, holding that against them doesn’t do anything to them; it just turns you into a bitter, resentful person.

If your friend has sinned, forgive them. Talk to them. Ask them what’s going on with them, because more often than not that’s an indication that they’re not okay.

Fight for your friendships. Fight for your community. Seek to understand what happened, and if it’s something you can help, do it. If it’s something you can fix, fix it. But beyond the helping and the fixing, always always forgive. God has so many blessings He wants to give you, and if you’re focused on how some other person has hurt you, you’ll miss out on what God wants to do in your life.

Questions for Reflection

• Why is it important to seek to understand the reason behind a friend’s actions before you cast blame on them?

• Why do you think we get forgiveness and restoration mixed up?

• How did Jesus call sinners to repentance yet still invite them into relationship with Him?

Weekly Memory Verse

---

Join my author community by signing up for my regular emails. I send out fun stories and updates about my books, along with the occasional freebie!