“One should rather die than be betrayed. There is no deceit in death. It delivers precisely what it has promised. Betrayal, though ... betrayal is the willful slaughter of hope.” Steven DeitzProbably one of the most difficult and gut wrenching trial and test that a Pastor (or anyone for that matter) might experience in life is the betrayal by someone close to you. It can be at the hands of family members, husband or wife, church members, friends, business associates, etc. I have had a few relationships that have ended in betrayal. I tend to be very loyal, forgiving, and ‘giving the benefit of the doubt’ in my relationships with people. I don’t live life as a rule with the idea ‘people are going to disappoint you.’ Yet it does happen and nothing is more sinister than betrayal.
Ps 55:12-14
It is not an enemy who taunts me — I could bear that. It is not my foes who so arrogantly insult me — I could have hidden from them. Instead, it is you — my equal, my companion and close friend. What good fellowship we enjoyed as we walked together to the house of God. NLT
This scripture is one of betrayal. The Bible gives us repeated instances of it. The religious community and one of His closest friends betrayed Jesus. Those who were closest to David betrayed him. Joseph's own family betrayed him. Betrayal is a fact of life!
Os Hillman calls loving those that betray you ‘graduate level Christianity.’ A Godly response to betrayal goes against everything in us. We want to protect, retaliate, and retain unforgiveness and bitterness. Therein lies Satan’s tool against us walking free of betrayal. We have to seek and appropriate God’s grace for these difficult situations. Loving our enemies cannot be accomplished by mustering it up. We need to die to ourselves so that God’s nature of true forgiveness and love can flow to us and through us to those that have betrayed us.
If you have experienced betrayal, may God give you the victory over it in 2007!
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