Friendships are important in a person’s life. Most of us have a set group of friends and at least 1 best friend.
This of course applies to me as well. I have had a set group of friends from childhood that changed and expanded during my high school years. After high school, a number of friends fell away, simply because we had other plans and future perspectives.
Also had a number of friends that I called my best friends.
The moment I gave my heart to Jesus Christ years ago Papa God changed my heart. The interests I had up to that moment changed. Papa opened my heart and my eyes and gave me discernment. With this discernment, my preferences in life changed. This affected the TV shows I watched, the kind of music I listened to and the people I interacted with.
Papa God showed me very clearly which friendships I should continue to invest in and which friendships did not honour His name. He never told me to break up a friendship because Papa is not like that, He did however give me the knowledge and insight about a person / friendship to make my own choice whether I wanted to continue the friendship.
Because of this new discernment, a number of friendships I cherished came to an end. These did not live up to Papa’s name, so the desire to continue them disappeared. Side note: none of the friendships came to an end in strife; we, as the world would put it, “grew apart”.
As for some friendships, it is not that we can never be friends again, this depends on whether these friends will come to Jesus and live for His glory.
However, I have been facing a dilemma for years;
One of my best friends has not given her life to Jesus, (now I can hear you saying that this should not be a problem, because true friendship can overcome anything), however, she lives a life far from Jesus, about which I do not judge. She fully engages in the things of the world, the things that cause Papa grief, and I as a new person have a hard time sitting in her presence and having to watch the enemy have a free hand in her life. The bottleneck is that despite the fact that I have a lot of love for her and love having her in my life, very much so, I cannot conform to the choices she makes in her life. Not because she is a bad person, not because I wish her badly, but simply because I cannot agree with her behaviour and her choices. If I do then I am consenting to the will of the enemy, I simply cannot support that.
The other side of this coin is that in the eyes of this friend, I am trying to act pious. Where I used to make the same worldly choices, now I play holy and it comes across as if I am judging. I am labelled boring and literally attacked for knowing better and trying to do better.
So you see, in the end, Papa knows how to turn everything around for the better. Because His hand rests on my life, He has made creating distance between her and me easier. Which puts a decades-long friendship in the freezer.
I deliberately say in the freezer, because this friendship is not over, my friend remains in my prayer; I pray that she will discover the Word and build an intimate relationship with Papa so that she will come out of the grip of the enemy. This will come to pass!
Sometimes it is difficult to let go of situations in life that do not honour Papa, but in the end Papa will make everything work together for good.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
Are you going through the same situation? Don’t give up on your friend, create distance, but keep them in prayer.
