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Should You Cut Someone Out of Your Life? Finding God’s Direction
Introduction to Discernment in Relationships
Perhaps there have been people in your life with whom you do not feel comfortable being around, including those who are dear to you. However, at the bottom of your heart, you know that you need to begin distancing yourself, and that you have been searching for that confirmation from the Holy Spirit. Give me a moment, and I am sure that you will get it from the Holy Spirit through God’s word.
1. The Distractors: People Who Pull You From Your Purpose
The first kind of relationship that the Holy Spirit will warn you about are the distractors. These are people who pull you from your purpose. They fill your life with the meaningless.
Now here I need to pause because as we go through these different kinds of relationships that the Holy Spirit’s warning you about, it’ll be important that you apply some balance. So, when I talk about the distractors, I’m not talking about people who will relax with you. You vacation with some friends. You maybe go out to eat with some friends. Maybe all you do is hang out and laugh. There’s nothing wrong with that either. Everyone needs some recreation. Everyone needs some rest and relaxation. Everyone needs fellowship in which they’re simply enjoying hanging out with others. It doesn’t necessarily have to always be productive and busy all the time. Actually, in my opinion, those kinds of things help you be more productive.
Recognizing the Danger of Short-Sighted Friendships
But I’m referring to those friends that will make you think only of the present. In other words, they care for nothing else apart from fun and what people are doing and where people hang out. You may actually end up wasting your time and years of your life, and soon you will find that you have wasted too much of your time without being able to utilize anything to accomplish the destiny set in your life by God.
Life is sacred. God’s given to you as a gift. When he created you, he created you for a purpose. He created you with a plan. He put gifts inside of you, abilities, and he wants you to make use of that which he’s deposited in you. Therefore, if the individuals who keep your company sleep too much, eat too much, fail to look after themselves, do not make plans, are often late, have no timetable, always concentrate more on fun than productivity, you need to heed that warning by the Holy Spirit.
Why Growth Makes Others Uncomfortable
You’ll notice that as you begin to grow and as you begin to improve and as you begin to apply yourself to fulfill the destiny for your life, you’ll notice that certain people around you are going to be uncomfortable with that. Maybe you have certain health goals, financial goals, ministry goals, business goals. Maybe you want to get married. Maybe you want to have kids. Whatever the goal may be, you just want to grow as a person. And here’s what you’re going to notice that’s going to start happening is that the individuals around you are going to begin to become uncomfortable with your growth.
Why? Because the application of your skills, the giving of yourself to the bettering of yourself, the focus that you have reminds them of the focus that they lack. Goals that you set and goals that you are actually achieving remind them of the goals that they have long forgotten about and the goals that they have failed to achieve. Thus, instead of being motivated by your success, they envy you and attempt to bring you down and keep you at their level. Why? Because they need to maintain the comfort zone in which they live. People who don’t have goals don’t want any changes because those changes will remind them of the time that is going away from them. Thus, they are trying to keep you as you are. They are trying to keep you mediocre.
Keep your eyes on the Lord. Keep your eyes on divine dreams that God has blessed you with. Keep your eyes on divine purpose of yours. Keep your eyes on being more like Jesus. Keep your eyes on showing love to people surrounding you as Jesus showed love to you.
2. The Takers: Navigating Emotional Drains and Manipulation
Secondly, be very cautious about this point – the takers. This group of people, particularly when you are empathic, caring, generous, and compassionate, is going to attract your attention.
There is something that I am going to say which not everyone is going to like but you have to hear it. There is nothing called 50/50 relationship. Each side needs to give 100% as they’re able. Having said that, there will be no relationship where it is exactly equal. In any friendship, marriage, parent relationship, child relationship, sibling relationship, it doesn’t matter, you name it, in any relationship, there will always be just a little bit of off balance. In other words, there’ll be someone who initiates a little more, gives a little more, and then the other person doesn’t necessarily do as much. Now, that’s not right, but that’s just the way it is. Why? Because you can’t quantify these things. There’s no way to—I mean, unless you want to get really technical with it and write everything down on a piece of paper: Here’s how much time I invested in you. Here’s how much time I want you to invest in me. Here’s how much money I gave you. Here’s how much money I want you to give me—because it doesn’t work that way. Different people bring different things to the relationship, and it’s just not possible to track it in such a tedious and systematic way. So, what are we left with? We’re left with just recognizing that we ought to do our best to pour into people as they pour into us and keep no records after that.
Identifying One-Sided Friendships and Emotional Crutches
Having said that, you will notice that there are certain relationships where you rarely ever see them putting back in. Where if you were to stop calling them, if you were to stop texting them, you’d never hear from them again.
Look, we ought to be there for people, but some people want help, others just want attention and they mistake that attention for help. They think that by getting attention, feeling better in that moment, that that is what’s actually helping them, and they’re unwilling to do the work and to apply the word in a way that will forever set them free from those emotional issues that cause them to have to lean on other people. And in that way, they’re trying to get you to be a replacement for God in their life and you become their idol. Except as an idol, you can’t do for them everything they want, and you’ll never meet their expectations.
Well, what tends to happen in those situations is that you put in, you put in, you put in, but they do not put anything in themselves. In fact, more often than not, they will make you feel guilty, making you feel as though you have not done enough, despite the fact that you have done all that you could possibly do. It is just like pouring water into a bottomless cup – the water will keep dripping out from the bottom.
Maybe someone did that to you. They came to you and they said, “Oh, this past relationship was just so—everyone always abandons me. Everyone always just—they always misunderstand me.” And it’s true, it may be true. Perhaps sometimes you really are alone. Perhaps sometimes you do feel misunderstood, but everyone does.
But then they use that. They weaponize their pain against you to touch on your guilt to cause you to function in a way where you’re straining yourself constantly while they just sit back and take all the benefits. And to keep you in that loop, they freak out when you challenge them on it.
3. The Sinful: Guarding Your Heart Against Compromise and Drama
Number three, now I’m just going to come right out and say it here. If you’re in a romantic relationship and you are not married, there should be no sexual activity. That is sin. It is wrong. There’s no excuse for it biblically speaking. And if you’re claiming to be a Christian, hear me now. If you claim to be a Christian and you are intentionally living this lifestyle of sin, then there’s something very wrong there. Very wrong indeed. And if there’s no conviction of the Holy Spirit, you need to check your heart.
So, those romantic relationships that pull you into sexual sin, sexual compromise—and I’m not just talking about what we would all think is actual sexual sin. I’m talking about all of the ways in which you gratify your sexual nature in that relationship.
This is biblical, guys. You have to ask yourself, does this person actually intend on marrying you? Or are they just pretending to be committed so they can get sexual gratification out of you? Because what needs to happen is there has to be this deep repentance. Either you need to draw a line and stop the sexual sin, or you need to cut off that relationship. I’m serious.
Now when you hear this, there’s going to be this debate in your mind, this back and forth: Well, maybe, you know, if we just work through this or we make it to marriage, or maybe—there’s all these compromises you’re going to be trying to allow yourself to make. There’s all these negotiations we have with God. And here’s the reality, if that’s what you’re doing internally right now, that’s just proof to you that the Holy Spirit’s already spoken to you. And so, either you cease the sexual sin and you both agree to that, draw that line and stop, or you have to cut that relationship off for the sake of your soul. For the sake of your future. For the sake of your destiny in God, you need to recalibrate immediately.
Recognizing Other Influences to Sin and Chaos
And I’m not just talking about sexual sin. That’s just probably the biggest one that people think of when I talk about sinful relationships. But you know, outside of romantic partners, people can influence you to sin in all sorts of different ways. They can influence you to live lifestyles of drunkenness. They can influence you to form an addiction. Maybe they enable an addiction that you’ve already battled with, and doing drugs, smoking weed, all of these things that you know you ought not to be doing.
This is not saying, “Don’t have a conversation with unbelievers.” How are you ever supposed to share the gospel with someone if that’s the case? Rather, what this is speaking of is that influence that someone has in your life through a close connection that you’ve allowed them to have with you. If that is causing you to stumble, if that is causing you to compromise, if that is causing you to take your eyes off the things of God, it’s time to cut it off.
Conclusion
Father, I pray that You would give your people discernment for knowing which relationships need to end, and boldness to act on that discernment without delay. Father, I pray that You would give them wisdom for setting boundaries and keeping their distance when needed. All glory and honor be to You.
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