When Hurt By a Friend

I hope you take the time to read this post because it wa a bit of an eye opener to me :)

When Hurt By a Friend: Wisdom from Scripture
by Mark D. Roberts

One of the things I most value about the Bible is its realism. Scripture doesn't look at life through rose-colored glasses, thus asking us to deny our experience and pretend as if everything's right in the world. Whether we're facing natural disasters or injuries done by a friend, the Bible provides realistic as well as divinely-inspired wisdom.

Scripture includes plenty of instances of friends wronging friends, or even relatives wronging relatives. For example:

• Already in the fourth chapter of Genesis we have a brother killing a brother out of jealousy.

• Then, in Genesis 37, the brothers of Joseph sell him into slavery, a gracious step up from their original plan to kill him.

• Job sufferings are magnified by the superficial accusations of his friends, about whom he laments, "My brothers are as undependable as intermittent streams, as the streams that overflow when darkened by thawing ice and swollen with melting snow, but that cease to flow in the dry season (Job 6:15-17).

• The Psalms are full of complaints about enemies, but the bitterest pain of all comes from the betrayal of a friend: "Even my best friend, the one I trusted completely, the one who shared my food, has turned against me" (Psalm 41:9).

• The prophet Hosea, upon God's command, married a woman who had been a cult prostitute, and who returned to her former ways after becoming Hosea's wife and the mother of his children (Hosea 1-2).

• Turning to the New Testament, we find plenty of instances in which folks who were converted by Paul turned against him (1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians), rejecting his instruction and spurning his love.

• Of course the New Testament contains the archetypal picture of friend hurting friend, when Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss (Luke 22:47-48).

So, my first point in response to Hugh's question is that the Bible gets it. The problem of being injured by a friend is real, and painful, and part of the brokenness of humanity, and something God understands, not just as a dispassionate observer, but as One who experienced betrayal in Judas's kiss.

In fact, Scripture reveals that God is the One who knows most what it's like to be hurt by friends, ever since Adam and Eve first rejected Him (Genesis 3). Time and again, Israel spurned the Lord, acting not only as a betraying friend, but even an adulterous wife (Jeremiah 3, Hosea 1-2). The prologue to John's Gospel laments concerning Jesus, the Word of God, "But although the world was made through him, the world didn't recognize him when he came. Even in his own land and among his own people, he was not accepted" (John 1:10-11). Yes, "not accepted," to say the least. More than "not accepted," He was betrayed by a friend and tortured to death at the behest of the leaders of His own people. When it comes to the hurt caused by a friend, not only does the Bible get it, but God gets it . . . personally and painfully.

Why does this matter? Because when we've been hurt by somebody close to us, it makes all the difference in the world to know that God understands and cares. Without a doubt, the deepest pain I've felt in over twenty years of ministry has come from the actions of friends, or people I've considered to be friends. When I've shared my heart with someone, when we've ministered together, when I've guarded his backside against the accusations of others, and then this friend turns on me . . . the hurt is huge, the disappointment profound. In times like these when I've cried out to God, the realization that God really understands has brought me nearer to God. It has given me hope and comfort. Not that the pain disappears. That takes a long time, usually. But God has used my experiences of the betrayal of friends to draw me closer to Him, and for this I am truly grateful.

Yet bringing my feelings of betrayal to God has helped me to see something else, something distressing, but necessary to see. I've come to realize how much my own unfaithfulness to God has hurt Him. For most of my life I've thought of my sin as dishonoring God (which it does) and deserving His wrath (which it does). But the experience of a friend's betrayal has helped me to see that that God of the Universe, in addition to judging my sin, is also pained by it. The God who has sought me out in Jesus Christ grieves when I reject Him in favor of lesser gods, even as Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41; see also Ephesians 4:30). This realization has quickened my desire to remain in relationship with God and to honor Him in all that I do. Thus, ironically and mercifully, God has used injury from a friend to deepen my faith and strengthen my relationship with Him.