The Hard Relationships

Releasing someone isn’t the failure of your love. 

Sometimes it’s the honest end of it. This episode is for anyone carrying a name that puts a weight in their chest, the family member, the friend, the one who won’t turn the lens around. 

We’ll find the difference between a fortress and a filter, look at the father who let the prodigal go and still kept the porch light on, and discover that guarding your heart and keeping it soft aren’t opposites. 

You never had to save anyone. You only had to follow the One who already did.

Check out our YouTube Channel “You Finishing Well” and our website: www.youfinishingwell.com 

All you have to do is go to our website and sign up for updates - all free. 

Stay strong, pure, and like Christ - Thanks for taking the journey with me! 

Transcript

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Hey everybody and welcome back to my podcast, You Finishing Well. This is Tim Owen. Today I wanted to talk about something that honestly has been on my mind and heart for almost a month now for various reasons. Counseling sessions, my own personal family, dealing with hard relationships. Are you dealing with a hard relationship and you're just wrestling with it? You're not quite sure what to do, what to say, how to respond? So today I wanted to share some experiences and things I've learned and hopefully it might help you. Let's talk about it. So wow, man, the relationship thing, whether you're married, whether you're dating, whether you have a family member or a friend that's just very hard to deal with. Wow, heavy relationships or hard relationships can really just wear on you, right? And these aren't necessarily, you know, they're not the person that you just hate. It's typically the person that you love and you dread in the same breath. I mean, it's just a very interesting struggle. And it's the one whose name sort of puts a weight in your chest. It sort of robs you I've blogged before of your peace. And before you even start thinking about them, I don't know, it's just an uncomfortable or awkward thing. Do you have a family member like that? Do you have a friend like that? I mean, a lot of us do. So I have been wrestling with this question almost for a solid month. And from the counseling room all the way to my own house and our own kitchen table, I just honestly can't tell you that I have it all figured out. But I'm going to try to share with you what I'm seeing. And I hope what I have to say to you might help. So here's the verse that it started with. Actually, there's a lot of verses, but I'm going to share the one I read actually today. And it's sort of an uncomfortable verse for me. Here it is, Proverbs 21:10. Evil people only want to harm others. Their neighbors get no mercy from them. So let's let's let's define what a hard relationship is. And I want to talk about victims a little bit. So let me say this right up front. I am not calling anyone in my life evil. Now you might have an evil person in your world, but not in mine. The people on my mind, they really are not villains. They aren't. But the phrase no mercy, man, it has followed me around all week, frankly, all month, because I just know people who don't show mercy. And lately I just, I don't know, man. I just keep running into them. And the pattern of this almost always has the same center to it. The victim role. I mean, you certainly have come across it, I know. Nothing is ever theirs. Everything, and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not speaking from a cynical position, don't get me wrong. But everything seems to have happened to them. You should have called sooner, you should have known better. You don't understand what I've been through. I mean, we've been told that, right? You owe me, you hurt me, you pay. I mean, it's a script, and it just never seems to break that character. And you can hand them the truth as gently as you know how. And boy, have I tried to do this. And it just slides right off because the coat's already on, and for some reason they just refuse to take it off, right? I mean, that's that's kind of how it is. You know, the victim role is one role that you just never have to change because it's always, and I mean always, someone else's fault. That's the life of the victim. And here's the quiet trap in it. You and me, we start feeling responsible for a life that frankly is not your life to carry. And you start apologizing, or at least I do, for the things that you did not do, just to sort of keep the peace. I mean, is that sounding familiar to you? And here's the thing: they let you. I mean, and the criticism that comes with it, the fickleness where nothing's ever right. And underneath all of it, a person who will not for anything turn the lens around and simply look at themselves. Now, if you've not gone back and read some of my blogs, maybe even a, I think I even did a YouTube on this, feel free to go do that. It's a similar message. Why? Because the truth of what God says about this doesn't change. And that's kind of why some of my blogs and podcasts are very similar. But here's the question in a hard relationship. When do you walk away? I mean, when do you walk away? You know, I've even had someone in my family that I've recently kind of, I guess the new word for me is to release them. And I want you to hear how hard for me it is to say, because I just love this person so deeply. In fact, I've had to do this with a few of my family members. I think our family is like crazy dysfunctional. I think that's why I try to do counseling and help other people. Anyway, I suppose it's probably even the reason that I keep repeating my post. I think this is going to be the last one on relationship. Well, that's not true. I'm about to do a YouTube on adult children, but then then I'll be done. Anyway, letting go, I mean, it feels like betrayal to me, it does. I mean, I feel so guilty about it. But holding on, frankly, is costing me. And it's cost me a payment that I can never pay off. It just is. So when I go back and I look at my my Christ and my Jesus and how my Savior handles hard relationships, here's kind of what I keep coming back to. We have this idea that Jesus was just, I don't know, endlessly available to everybody, arms open, no exceptions. But I want you to listen to what the apostle John wrote. Here it is, John 2, 24 and 25. Here's what he said. But Jesus did not trust them because he knew them all. He did not need anyone to tell him about people because he knew what was in people's hearts. And I tell you what, another verse I can't I can't remember, but it it says that whatever comes out of a person's mouth is what is in their heart. So if we just listen to people and what they're saying, they will reveal their heart to you. It's one of the most powerful things a counselor is taught. But the most loving person, Jesus Christ, who's ever lived himself, never turned his heart over to every person in the room. I mean, he just didn't. And here's the part that really kind of makes me pump the brakes a little bit. After he was resurrected, after he conquered death, he didn't march into Pilate's palace to prove he's alive. Look who I am. You know, he just didn't do that. He didn't hunt down the crowd that had screamed for his blood. He went to the ones who were his. And he let the rest of them just be. And if anyone had the power and the right to force his way back in, it was Jesus Christ. But he didn't do it. I mean, that's gonna make you stop and think for a second. So love, listen, and access to you, they were never the same thing to Jesus, and they shouldn't be the same thing to you. So why did we decide that they have to have access to us? Because that just really isn't the case. So when you stop and think about a hard relationship, you also have to ask another question: how do these people, because they're just people, we don't really get our sustenance from people, or we shouldn't. We should come from God and Jesus Christ. But how do they take us down? I want you to think of a lifeguard. Every one of them is taught the same hard lesson. A drowning person will pull you under, not from hate, but from panic, grabbing whatever's closest, climbing it for more air, and even when that thing is the person trying to save them, that's what they're doing. So the lifeguards are trained to wait and to hand the person something to hold instead of their own body, instead of the lifeguard's body. And because you can't save the drowning person by drowning with them, that's what we do in bad relationships, some people are going to go under and they will pull you straight down with them. They just will. And you will call it love all the way until you hit the bottom. And I'm telling you, that's just not the way to roll. So we guard our hearts. We don't wall people off, listen carefully. We just guard our hearts. You know, in Proverbs, Solomon wrote, Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life. And there is a difference between a fortress building a wall and just a filter. So I'm just I'm just asking you to think about this. And releasing someone isn't the failure of your love. Listen, that's important to know. Sometimes it's the honest end of it. It is. You still love them, but you're being kindly and honest with them. You know, the apostle Paul admitted as much as when he wrote, to live in peace with everyone. That's Romans 12, 18. Give it your best, which quietly confesses that peace does take two people. And you only control, listen, you only control one of them, and that's you. You know, as we talk about all this, I have to also confess, and it's a big thing for me, is I don't want to become cynical or bitter. I mean, it's a fear of mine. And you know, I have a fear of not only just getting hurt, I guess that's a fear, I guess, but I do have a bigger fear that I might get bitter and angry and mean and cynical. That you'll release one person and slowly start releasing everybody until you're safe and alone and cold. I don't want to become that person. The only thing I've found that works is this. You stay closer to God than you stay to the wound or to that person. And when you release someone, your flesh wants to sort of build a case against them. It does. Somehow you want to justify it. But scripture keeps handing you a mirror instead. What is your play in it? It just does. And prayer keeps your hands open when everything in you kind of wants to make a fist. I'm telling you this from experience because sometimes you just get angry and sometimes you're like, well, they did this and they did that. That's probably not the place to land. You know, I keep picturing the father of the prodigal son. We always watch the running boy, we do, right? But we but look at the father. He let his son go. And I know you've probably heard that before if you're a church person. He didn't chain him to the porch, he didn't drag him home, he released him. And then he kept the light on and his heart soft, so that the moment the boy turned around, the father was already there. And that's a holy release. That's not slamming a door, that's not riding someone out of your heart, it's opening your hand, leaving the porch light on, and refusing to drown in the far country, trying to save someone who hasn't yet decided to be saved. I know it's I mean, if you're thinking of a person right now, that can be very, very difficult. You can love someone with your whole heart and still not give them the keys to your house. You can. And Jesus did exactly that. You are allowed to do it as well. So let's kind of bring it home. So if there's a name in your mind right now, maybe today it's the day you stop going under with them. Not with hatred, but just draw a line and right start and try your best to finish well. But finish well for your own health and theirs. Let them know you love them, but now you love them differently. And it may help them more than you know. So I don't know if any of that helps. Let's pray and just kind of ask God to put a capstone on this. God, you you know the names that we're carrying today. You know the ones who love, who show us no mercy, and how tired or we just run thin. You know how long some of us has have been apologizing apologizing for lives that were never ours to carry. So I just pray that you teach us the difference between loving someone and handing them the keys to our peace. Give us hearts that really do stay soft and hands that really do stay open, but let us let them go. Keep us close to you. And and I pray that bitterness never finds any room to grow in my heart. And where we've been drowning, I pray that you would just pull us up and remind us that you never ask us to save anyone. That is your job. That's the job of the Holy Spirit. You only ask us to follow the one who already did. So I just pray that you will bless the situation, help someone draft a note or say something final. I love you, but now I want to love you differently. And we just pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, guys, thanks for being with me again, and I'll talk to you soon.