The Truth About Standing Up:
You Can Become a Champion of Peace
People may not like it, and often they won’t understand,
but with grace it is possible to be strong without being mean.
GERALD MAY, MD
A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes
will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy.
PROVERBS 29:1 NIV
When talking with clients about what they need to do to stop the destructiveness in their relationships, I often use this illustration. I scoot my office chair close to where they’re sitting and start to gently kick them in the shins. They look at me wide-eyed, surprised by my unusual behavior, but usually they just sit there, allowing me to continue kicking them.
I say, “Now what are you supposed to do?” They sit passively, not exactly sure. I tell them, “It’s time to speak up. Say Ouch or Stop or Don’t do that, I don’t like that.”
Then they laugh and say, “Okay—stop, I don’t like that. It hurts me.”
But they’re not very convincing, so I ignore them, or laugh at them and continue to swing my foot into their shins. They usually say it again, this time a little firmer, but I continue to kick them. I change the subject or tell them they’re too sensitive, that they’re making a big deal out of nothing. I might say my behavior is their fault, because they aggravated me, or I might claim that I can’t help it, this is just what counselors do when they’re frustrated. By now their legs are more than a little sore.
“What’s your response to my indifference? Or my excuses?” I ask. “What are you going to do about your problem?”
Many are tempted at this point to argue with me about my excuses or rationalizations or justifications for kicking them. Some even try to understand why I feel the way I do. “Don’t do it!” I tell them. “You’ll get sidetracked. Your problem is that I’m not stopping when you asked me and that I’m not respecting you right now. Period! What are you going to do about it?”
Eventually they get it. They stand up and in a firm voice say, “Stop kicking me! If you don’t stop right now then I will have to leave.” I stop. I realize they mean business. They aren’t going to tolerate my inappropriate behavior. This is what I’m after. They can’t stop me from kicking them or thwart me from justifying it or blaming them, but they can block my leg from hitting theirs by moving back from me and informing me of the consequences if I don’t stop.
Why Stand Up?
As silly as this illustration is, people get the point. Your passivity is detrimental when others lie to you, ignore you, treat you disrespectfully, or use you. Getting caught up in defending your request that someone stop their hurtful behavior is also counterproductive. When you stand up, don’t see the action as merely standing up for yourself. For many of us that feels too self-centered, and at times it might be.
When we stand up to a destructive person, we are standing up for something bigger than just our own feelings. We are standing up for goodness, truth, righteousness, and peace. In addition, as Jesus always did, we are standing up against sin, evil, wickedness, lawlessness, and abuse of power and privilege. We need make no apologies for standing up when we need to. Jesus never did.
Whenever Christ spoke to people about their obvious wrong behaviors or deceptively sinful hearts, anyone who humbly acknowledged his or her failings received nothing but gracious, tender compassion from him. Those who refused to listen or acknowledge their wrongdoing received a more potent dose of truth—not because Jesus loved them less, but like strong ammonia revives the faint, hard truth can shock us into awareness. (See, for example, Matthew 23 or Mark 7:6-13.)
All people are precious to God (including you). He has created you in his image with dignity and value and purpose. You may not feel this way about yourself yet, but it’s true. God loves you and not only wants to teach you how to love others well, he wants to help you take a stand against sin. You are not someone else’s property or an object to be used or abused; don’t allow yourself to be treated as such. Submitting to mistreatment is destructive to you and to those who treat you in such a devaluing way. They not only diminish your personhood, they diminish their own. This is not what people were made for.
When you continue to offer yourself in relationship to people who consistently mistreat you, disrespect you, control you, abuse you, deceive you, and use you, you will feel sicker and sicker (Proverbs 4:14-27). Jesus tells us in Matthew 18 that when people are blind to their sin against you, we are to enlist others to help them see. This step is part of standing up. You take a stand with a supportive person or community by your side and together declare, “My requests are not negotiable. I will not continue to live in fear,” or “be controlled,” “be disrespected,” “be degraded,” “be lied to,” or “be ignored” as it is appropriate to your situation.
When you finally stand up, don’t be surprised if you find yourself being accused of non-Christian, mean, abusive, and controlling behavior. The other person will likely retaliate against your newfound strength and want you to back down by trying to make you feel afraid or guilty. He or she may accuse you of being too sensitive, too selfish, or unrealistic in your expectations. The implication is that you have no right to challenge the way he or she treats you.
That is not true. God calls us to treat others with love, grace, kindness, and truth. Stay calm but firm. If you back down now, you will continue in the destructive dance. If you are being consistently mistreated or hurt in your relationship, it is imperative for the health of your relationship as well as for your own mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being that you stand up and stay standing (Proverbs 25:26).
Standing up for truth and righteousness, against sin, with others by our side helps us stand firm. Ideally, the other person will accept responsibility to change his or her destructive ways. If not, the next step is to distance ourselves from the relationship, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently.
Step Back
Conflict is inevitable in any relationship. Yet when a participant will not see or take responsibility for serious sin against us after we have spoken up and stood up, the only thing left for us to do is to step back.
Jesus says, “If he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector” (Matthew 18:17 NIV). Jesus is saying that when someone refuses to hear our concerns, our relationships change. The people of Jesus’ day didn’t trust pagans and tax collectors. These individuals were never part of a Jewish person’s inner circle of friends. A good Jew might help a tax collector or pagan if there was a need, and certainly he would be respectful toward them, but he would never intimately fellowship with them.
Being in a close relationship with someone is not a right, even if both people are Christians. It is a sacred privilege. The apostle Paul advises us to distance ourselves from people who are continually destructive, especially if they claim to be Christian, in order to send a clear message that their behaviors or attitudes are sinful and unacceptable, both to us and to God (1 Corinthians 5, especially verse 11). Stepping back when necessary helps minimize the damage that the destructive person inflicts on us and our children.
Creating Separation
Not everyone is able to physically distance themselves from someone who is destructive. But creating separation can be very helpful, even if you only do it temporarily.
Francine was married to a man who said he was a Christian. He had a hot temper and poor self-control. Frank never touched Francine with his hands, but his harsh words wounded her spirit more than any punch could have. He used verbal weapons to attack Francine whenever she didn’t cooperate with his agenda, made a mistake, or did something he thought was stupid. Francine tried speaking up and sharing how his outbursts hurt her. Frank heard her, and sometimes he even seemed genuinely sorry, but he didn’t change his behavior.
Next Francine tried standing up. One evening as Frank was in the midst of an outburst she firmly said, “Stop it right now!” Startled, Frank chuckled at his wife’s newfound assertiveness and continued his tirade, although it didn’t last as long.
Finally Francine decided to step back. Frank’s words cut her to the core, and she felt like she was being punched again and again. She was no longer going to allow that to happen. Because he wouldn’t control himself and she couldn’t control him, she chose to leave and not allow herself to be treated in that way. Together we made a plan so that next time Frank began to get riled up, Francine would be prepared.
Francine decided that she would leave their home the minute Frank got started. She knew his patterns long enough to know what was coming. She would grab her purse and walk right out the door. (They had no children, who should be included in any exit plan.) Francine made an extra set of car keys, which she put in the garage. She hid some cash there as well, just in case she had to leave without her purse. In her trunk she packed an overnight bag and a coat, so that she would not need to come home until the next day.
The next time Frank began to lose control, Francine implemented her plan. Frank found he had no one to yell at but the four walls. Later, Francine called him from her cell phone. She said, “I’m not going to allow myself to be your verbal punching bag anymore. The way you talk to me is hurtful and disrespectful. You dishonor me as your wife and as God’s daughter. When you act that way you also degrade yourself. I still love you and I will be home tomorrow after work. This will give you some time to get control over your temper and think about things.”
Francine continued to implement her plan whenever Frank started to demean and disrespect her. He soon learned that it was expensive for him to lose control of himself as the credit card bills for her hotel began to mount.
Stepping back was good for both Francine and Frank. Francine saved herself from bearing the brunt of Frank’s emotional dumping and ill-will during its greatest intensity. She did not have his ugly words to ponder throughout the night, nor did she have to struggle with forgiving him for hurting her. She also realized that she did not have to feel guilty for leaving, because she was actually helping him to learn how to control himself. She saw that her choices were good for both of them.
Frank finally understood Francine was not going to tolerate his abusive behavior anymore, and he began to learn how to handle his anger and disappointment in different, healthier ways. He always knew it was wrong to treat Francine the way he did, but now that he had to experience painful consequences (financial and relational), he took his problem more seriously.
If you are unable to physically distance yourself from a relationship, learn how to emotionally distance yourself so that you continue to get healthier and the other person realizes that you mean what you say. People who are destructive should lose the privilege of your fellowship. That does not mean that you have to turn your back on the person in question. Step back while still facing forward, inviting that person to change so that reconciliation may be possible.
Why Step Back?
I said in the introduction to this book that for a 15-year period I did not see my mother, and now I’m going to explain why. After losing custody of her children, my mother chose not to remain closely involved in our lives. I too made the choice to distance myself from my mother and sent only the obligatory cards at Christmas and Mother’s Day. (Someone needs to make Mother’s Day cards for those who have destructive relationships with their mothers.) Let me share a little more of my own experience in this relationship.
To Gain Time to Heal
Even though I was a Christian and a brand-new counselor, I was not emotionally or spiritually strong enough to know how to be in my mother’s presence without getting demoralized as well as furious by her hurtful words. Even sporadic contact with her resulted in anger, introspective self-blame, and self-pity. My thoughts ran like this: What did I do to make my mother hate me so much? Why doesn’t she see any good in me? How can I get her to see and admit her destruc-tiveness toward me and get her to be sorry for it?
Over the years I tried speaking up. I got nowhere. I also stood up and told her firmly what she was doing that hurt me. It didn’t matter. She denied it. She blamed me. She exhibited no repentance, no awareness, and no desire to change. Finally I stepped back, not only from trying to get her to be different toward me, but from all personal contact. I needed to heal, and I needed to learn how to be near someone who was destructive without allowing her to devastate me. That took time. There is no such thing as instant healing or painless maturity.
Like me, you may need to step back to give yourself time to heal and grow. You might believe that nothing is changing, there is no hope of anything changing, and you can’t continue to live the way you have been. Emotionally you’re drained, mentally you’re confused, spiritually you feel dry or disconnected, and you need to get some fresh air.
A destructive relationship can be a lot like a toxic environment. Depending upon how toxic it is, things die within its boundaries. It might be your relationship that dies. It might be your faith. It might even be your sense of self. Don’t let that happen if you can help it. No one in his right mind would continue to live in a toxic environment without either trying to change it, open windows for fresh air, put on a protective suit, or get out. Who can expect anyone to thrive in this kind of environment? It’s not possible.
Whether you step back temporarily or more permanently, use this time wisely. If you’re stepping back from your marriage or other personal relationship, now is not the time to rush into another relationship. If you do this, you will probably repeat the same destructiveness that you just escaped. Now is the time for you to stop, take responsibility for your own areas of sin and immaturity, start healing, learn how to establish healthier relationships and boundaries, and deepen your intimacy with God. During this time apart, remember to pray for the other person, so that he or she might start to wake up and begin to grow too.
You might be surprised to learn that God does not require us to open ourselves up to everyone. Jesus didn’t (John 2:23-25). He also advises us to stay away from certain kinds of people precisely because they are destructive. (See, for example, Proverbs 1:15; 14:7; 21:28; 22:24; 1 Corinthians 15:33.) God commands us to love everyone, including our enemies, but that doesn’t mean we must have close fellowship with them. In fact, we can’t. That’s precisely why they’re called enemies.
To Give the Gift of Consequences
Francine’s purpose in stepping back from Frank was different than mine was with my mother. She was hoping to communicate in the strongest way possible (short of permanent separation) that she was not going to continue the same old dance with Frank. If he wouldn’t change, she would!
When you communicate your boundaries to someone, it’s important to state them correctly. Otherwise you will get stuck trying to get someone to do something you have no control over. For example, Francine correctly said to Frank, “I will not allow myself to be treated this way any longer.”
Francine had control over what she allowed herself to do or not do, but she had no control over Frank. If she had said, “I will not allow you to treat me this way any more,” her announcement would have less of an impact, because she can’t control Frank. The only time the “I will not allow you” kind of statement works is when we really have power over someone and can enforce our expectations, such as parents can with their child or a boss can with an employee or an abuser can with his victim.
Stepping back can be especially effective when the other person wants the relationship to continue. If the person doesn’t care, the action has less impact.
If the destructive partner is a spouse, implementing a more permanent separation from him or her becomes complicated because of finances, children, as well as the Bible’s teaching about marriage and divorce. If your efforts to take the other steps have yielded no changes, it’s time to involve your pastor and specific church leaders so that you are supported if you decide to take this next step (see Matthew 18:15-20).
Jesus calls us to be peacemakers instead of peacekeepers, who pretend all is well in order to maintain an illusion of peace. Terri tried that for years with John (chapter 1), and her passivity almost ended up destroying her and their marriage. Seeking genuine peace between two individuals may require tough action, especially when one party continues to be blind, unresponsive, or unrepentant. As a Christian counselor, I do not advise marital separation lightly; however, in some cases it is the only way to obtain the necessary space to think clearly, pray, and heal, as well as to communicate to the destructive partner in the strongest possible way that the relationship will not continue without change.
CONSEQUENCES—A GIFT?
In my book How to Act Right When Your Spouse Acts Wrong, I talk about giving the gift of consequences to help someone wake up to his or her own blindness and destructive behavior. Painful consequences are one of God’s most powerful ways to teach us to stop sinning and to live well (see Galatians 6:7). Recently I had the sad task of helping parents implement some painful consequences for their adult daughter, who was abusing cocaine and destroying her life. They didn’t do these things to harm their daughter but to help her wake up so that she would take responsibility for her problem and change.
Paul encourages us to distance ourselves from other believers who are sinning and refuse correction. (See for example, 1 Corinthians 5:9-11; 2 Thessalonians 3:6,14-15.) If the circumstances of your relationship are not changing in spite of everything else you have done thus far, it may be time for you to consider separating for the purpose of genuine reconciliation (2 Corinthians 7:10).
“As far as it depends on you,” Paul says, “live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18 NIV). Biblical peace doesn’t merely imply an absence of conflict between people but a genuine state of harmony, communion, and unity.1 Paul tells us to “make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification” (Romans 14:19 NIV). As Christians, we are to take the initiative to bring healing and restoration to our relationships, all the while knowing that the results aren’t totally up to us.
To Wait in Love
In the meantime, what do we do, and for how long?
There is plenty to do to heal and grow while stepping back from a destructive person. Much of it we will cover in chapters 10 through 12. Waiting on God and waiting on someone else is hard work. We want action and look for immediate results, and when we don’t see them coming anytime soon, we can become discouraged and tempted to give up.
While God’s Word does not require us to stay in relationship with everyone, we are more committed to certain people, either through blood or marriage, and these people might be the very ones who are most destructive in our lives (Micah 7:6). We hope for them to change or come to their senses, and our expectations rise when we think that perhaps they’re starting to wake up, but how can we tell if we’re witnessing genuine change or merely lip service?
What Is Genuine Repentance?
Only God can judge a person’s heart, but the Bible does tell us how to discern whether repentance is genuine. Feeling sad or shedding profuse tears, however, are not signs. Many of us get hooked back into a destructive relationship by a person’s strong emotions. They cry, they plead, they tell us how much they love us. They beg for another chance and become sweet and kind and wonderful, and before long we’re back with them, swept right down the same path of more destruction. Tears indeed are the language of the heart but what exactly are their tears saying? I’m so sorry. I’ve sinned against God and you, or Poor me, I feel devastated because you left me, or because you put these consequences in place. There is a huge difference.
The apostle Paul wrote a tough letter to the Corinthians, rebuking them about some serious wrongs. They felt sad and hurt. But Paul distinguished between two kinds of sorrow. One is a godly remorse over one’s sin against God and against another person. The other kind of sorrow is our emotional pain over the consequences we have to pay when we sin. This “worldly sorrow,” as Paul calls it, is more self-oriented than God-oriented (2 Corinthians 7:8-12).
If you’re looking for repentance, listen carefully to what others say when they are emotional. Are they aware of the pain they have caused? Do they show concern for your suffering? Do they acknowledge their deeper heart issues, such as selfishness, laziness, or pride? What happens when you won’t fellowship with them immediately and ask them to go to weekly counseling on their own for a period of time? Are they willing to do whatever it takes to change, even without promises of reconciliation or relationship? If not, then their sadness is sorrow for themselves, not godly sorrow. You will not know whether the things they promise you are true without giving it plenty of time. Words won’t show you these things, only actions over time will (Matthew 7:20; 1 Corinthians 4:20).
Can a destructive person change? Yes. However, the apostle Paul warns us not to be fooled or fool ourselves. When we change, we do not continue in those same sinful behaviors. He writes,
Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
In my experience, when destructive people finally come to counseling or are willing to admit they have a problem, they often do this in order to get the other person to back down from the new boundaries or consequences, not because they own what needs to change in them. They may have some superficial awareness they need healing, but they want it on their terms.
Testing the Response
In the Old Testament, Naaman angrily refused the prophet Elisha’s treatment plan for his leprosy. He wanted his healing to be easy, quick, and painless. Why should I have to go and wash myself seven times in the filthy Jordan River? Why couldn’t Elisha just wave his hands over me, or say a prayer? Elisha didn’t back down, and Naaman wisely realized that if he wanted to be healed, he would need to submit himself to what the prophet said to do (2 Kings 5:1-15).
Pay attention. Is the destructive person in your life willing to submit to church discipline and counseling to get help for her problem? Is she willing to work until she consistently demonstrates a changed heart as well as changed behaviors? You will only know the answers when you patiently wait in love. Once you’ve separated yourself from the person, full reconciliation should not occur until you and others observe consistent (not perfect) changes over a period of time.
Joseph used this same process to test his brothers. He had no contact with them for years after they sold him into slavery. When they came to him for food during a famine in their own country, they had no idea that the person they were talking with was their brother Joseph, though he knew who they were. Although Joseph was gracious, even generous, to his brothers, he did not trust them. He remembered their treachery and did not make himself vulnerable to them. In fact, he put them through a series of tests to expose what was going on in their hearts. On the surface they looked like changed men. But what was really going on? Were they still selfish or envious of their youngest brother, Benjamin, like they had been with Joseph? Would they trade Benjamin to save their own skins? It was only after much time and testing that Joseph let down his guard and invited his brothers back into his life. (See Genesis 37– 45 for the complete story.)
Test the other person. See how he responds to you when you don’t give him what he wants. If you don’t see consistent changes in the way he thinks, acts, and interacts with you and others, don’t for a minute believe his words or his profuse tears (Proverbs 26:23-24). Jesus said, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8 NIV).
A WORD ABOUT BIBLICAL LOVE
Many of the steps outlined in this chapter are extremely difficult for most of us to take because they make us feel mean and uncaring. It doesn’t help that destructive people will tell us we’re being hurtful or controlling when we stand up or step back. Therefore, I think it’s essential we get clear-headed about godly love.
Paul says that godly love does no harm (Romans 13:10). That does not mean that biblical love never hurts. Jesus often spoke sternly to the Pharisees, and Proverbs reminds us that a good friend might inflict loving wounds (Proverbs 27:6). All of us find it painful to swallow the medicine of hard truth. It hurts, but it heals.
Biblical love involves self-sacrifice and at times suffering, but let’s understand the sacrifice that God asks us to make. When Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13 NIV), he is speaking of those who are willing to give up their lives (physically or otherwise) for the good or well-being of another.
Risking our lives and suffering third-degree burns, for example, in order to rescue a person from a burning building, is godly and sacrificial love. Living in a dangerous inner city in order to bring people to Christ demonstrates sacrificial love. But allowing someone to continually sin against us without protest or consequence isn’t biblical love, it’s foolishness. It is never in anyone’s long-term best interest to allow them to keep sinning. Contrary to what destructive people will say, the most loving thing we could do for them is to hold them accountable for their actions. This indeed may cost us sacrifice and suffering. We do this not only for our benefit, but with the hope that as we draw a line in the sand and say “no more,” they will wake up to their own sinfulness and repent.
Too many individuals have been wrongly instructed that biblical love means they must be nice and suffer quietly, even as they are mistreated and abused. But as C.S. Lewis wisely wrote, “Love is more stern and splendid than mere kindness.”2