{"id":93459,"date":"2019-12-12T12:09:09","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T19:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/?p=93459"},"modified":"2019-12-12T12:09:09","modified_gmt":"2019-12-12T19:09:09","slug":"toxic-people-and-how-to-respond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/articles\/topics\/life-issues\/relationships\/toxic-people-and-how-to-respond\/","title":{"rendered":"Toxic People and How to Respond"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

I don\u2019t remember the last time I intentionally harmed someone, verbally or otherwise. So knowing my intentions before God, it was a bit of a shock when people started attacking me. But any God-given mission attracts opposition. That\u2019s where toxic people come into play.<\/p>\n

This was a lesson I had to learn when I first entered a bit of public ministry, as I was initially surprised by the intensity of the personal attacks.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to intentionally hurt anyone. I mean that. I try, before God and by His grace, to live by Romans 13:10, which teaches that \u201clove does no harm to a neighbor” (NIV).<\/p>\n

I have a pretty conservative approach to Scripture. I tend to think the clearest meaning, especially one the church has had throughout almost its entire history, is the one we should accept and aspire to, which I understand can be considered \u201cmean\u201d if Scripture appears to question something someone wants to do.<\/p>\n

Added to this, however, was the sometimes seemingly deliberate misrepresentation. I have had to come to grips with the fact that people have lied and will lie about me. They will rip a few sentences out of context, twist a few passages, and make me sound like I believe something I don\u2019t because they need something to be angry about and oppose.<\/p>\n

And they\u2019ll post it all on an Amazon review or in a blog.<\/p>\n

Receive more encouraging content like this delivered to your inbox!<\/i><\/span> <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>\n

I’m not trying to defend myself<\/h2>\n

It has taken me too long to learn that it\u2019s often best to simply not respond.\u00a0 (One could make an exception, of course, if a spouse needs to defend her or his reputation during a custody dispute, or something similar.) Here\u2019s what I\u2019ve come to terms with in regard to mission: My first goal in life isn\u2019t to defend me.<\/p>\n

What someone thinks about me won\u2019t impact their future spiritual destiny. For every minute someone lies about me, I want to spend an hour telling others the truth about Jesus Christ. I don\u2019t want to be distracted even to defend myself.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

God\u2019s kingdom is more important than mine. Infinitely more important. There\u2019s no time for lesser concerns.<\/p>\n

Jesus urged his disciples, \u201cAs long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me\u201d (John 9:4 NIV).<\/p>\n

Without this sense of mission, I could waste a lot of time and energy. Something I\u2019ve done at times in the past. Understanding the brilliance and depth of Matthew 6:33\u2014seeking first the kingdom of God, not my kingdom, reputation, or comfort\u2014keeps me on course to live a life that matters most.<\/p>\n

It’s about mission<\/h2>\n

I want to help deliver you from engaging in \u201cfantasy arguments\u201d with toxic people in your head or \u201cFacebook fights\u201d online. Armed with an acute sense of mission, you will realize that sometimes (though not always) defending your reputation is a waste of time when you could be focusing your energy on proclaiming the glory of God.<\/p>\n

The reason this is anchored in talking about mission is deliberate and crucial. Otherwise, what I have to say could be misunderstood and used for destructive aims.<\/p>\n

Our mission is not to seek out and defeat toxic people<\/a>. In most instances, unless we have vocational authority over them, our job is to ignore them so we don\u2019t get distracted from our mission to love others.<\/p>\n

The mission is our focus; toxic people are merely the distraction we need to avoid.<\/p>\n

Celebrated novelist and philosopher Aldous Huxley warns,<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who crusade not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes even perceptibly worse than it was before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. To be more against the devil than for God is exceedingly dangerous. Every crusader is apt to go mad. He is haunted by the wickedness which he attributes to his enemies; it becomes in some sort a part of him.\u201d<\/em>[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

Generous and sacrificial<\/h2>\n

Christians are called to love generously and even sacrificially. And that includes loving some very difficult people. If you think your job is to spot and confront toxic people for the sake of stopping toxic people, you\u2019ll miss the entire point.<\/p>\n

Service comes first; everything else flows from that. If I\u2019m driving down the highway eager to get somewhere, I\u2019m not going to stop whenever I see litter on the roadside. However, if something is blocking the road, I have to stop the car, jump out, and move it out of the way to get to where I\u2019m going.<\/p>\n

That should be your attitude with toxic people. Leave them in the hands of God when you can. Confront and remove them when you must. But always keep your focus on seeking first the kingdom of God.<\/p>\n

\n

Taken from When to Walk Away<\/em><\/strong> by Gary Thomas<\/a>. Copyright \u00a9 2019 by Gary Thomas. Used by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun (New York: HarperCollins, 1952), 192, 260.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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