Smiling Faces
I was initially going to make this a quick post on Facebook and Instagram, but felt led to share it on here as well. Before I dive into it, I’ll make a disclaimer:
- My intentions of this post is to encourage people to pray and ask for discernment on whoever comes into their lives.
- My intentions are not to cause any drama or paranoia in others, but to instead bring more peace by encouraging others to spend more time with God with even the “little things” in life, including relationships (whether friendships or romantic relationships).
- Lastly, yes, I did title this post after The Undisputed Truth’s song, released in 1971 called, “Smiling Faces Sometimes”. I’ll be including at the end of this post.
Fake Friends
A sad, but true reality is not everyone who claims to be on your side is truly rooting for you. In fact, some people who are jealous of you and/or want you to fail will try to befriend you to sabotage you. This, of course, isn’t always the case with everyone. Some people in your life truly and genuinely care about you. So how can you tell whether or not someone is really for you or not?
One way to discover if someone is your friend or not is to watch and listen to them carefully. This may seem a bit silly, but you can tell a lot about a person’s character by just observing them. How do they talk to you? Does what they say and do actually correlate? Or do they say one thing and do another? A reminder here is that none of us are perfect. Sometimes we may say we are going to the gym, but instead stay home to watch Netflix. That happens. But if someone is consistently saying one thing and doing the opposite, especially when it comes to more important things, then that’s a red flag.
But let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and your “No,” “No,” lest you fall into judgment.
- James 5: 12 (NKJV)
Another way to see if the person in your life is really for you is to see what they say about you when you aren’t there. I’m not saying to go up to every mutual friend or family member to see what this person is saying about you. You can simply do this by listening to this person or persons talk when they may not see that you are around. I’m not saying to be a stalker, but sometimes when you’re meeting up with friends in a public place, you can sometimes overhear their conversation as you approach the group, especially before they see you. You can sometimes be surprised (both in a good or bad way) by what is being said.
As a general rule, however:
Those who talk negatively about you to others behind your back (aka gossiping) are NOT your friend(s)!
Telling on Themselves
Some people may end up telling on themselves, no work required on your part. I actually discovered some “friends” that I met during my master’s program were talking behind my back this way. I thought I was pretty close to this person, since we did many activities together (including studying) on a regular basis. I told her something personal about my past. Not even a week later, I was chatting with one of our many mutual friends when we started talking about a topic similar to what I mentioned to this other individual. She mentioned a specific word that I mentioned to the other person. Shortly after mentioning that word, she became very uncomfortable (especially since I was making direct eye contact with her), which she expressed through her body language and speech. Realizing what she said, she began to search for and say random words, which made the conversation take a weird turn. Without saying anything at all to her, however, I realized that the other person I told this personal information to, has been sharing it around with this other individual, and God only knows who else.
What if a mutual friend tells you that the person(s) were talking behind your back? These situations are almost always tricky. Sometimes those mutual friend(s) have ulterior motives of their own and are deliberately trying to destroy your friendship/relationship. I’ve unfortunately been a victim of this instance when I was in high school. My friendship destroyed as a result of this mutual “friend” lying about me gossiping about this individual why she was gone. In other words, proceed with caution. Instead of letting offense set in, go directly to the person that was supposedly talking behind your back and have a civil conversation about it for clarity.
PRAY!
The most important way to discern whether or not someone is your friend is to pray. While in prayer, ask the Lord for discernment for every single person that comes (or tries to) into your life.
Many of us get too distracted by the excitement of this new individual coming into their lives (especially when it comes to romantic relationships), that we forget to discern who actually sent them into our lives. Not everyone that comes your way is sent by the God.
I often times hear women say, “he was brought to my life for a reason” (when it comes to their romantic relationships but can apply to friendships as well). The statement itself may be true, however, was the reason for this new person(s) entering your life to help or hurt you? The answer lies on who sent them in the first place. Did God send them or the devil?
By allowing God to infiltrate every facet of our being, including relationships, we can trust and rely on Him to warn us when the devil has sent snakes in the grass to try to attack us. If we are listening carefully to Him, we can avoid the harm altogether. After all, God is for you and NOT against you.
When giving everything to God, there is no need to be fearful or paranoid about someone potentially stabbing you in the back. In fact, the Lord will tell you if a person is for you or not. The key is to have an ongoing, intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father.
Forgive those that Hurt You
Forgiveness is a touchy subject for many people. In fact, it can be a touchy subject for me as well if I’m dealing with any kind of unforgiveness. It’s such a big subject that I’ve dedicated a whole blog post to Forgiveness back in 2020.
As mentioned above, I’ve been in many situations in the past where I needed to forgive people, including people who’ve pretended to be on my side but were really rooting for my demise. It is very frustrating to experience fake people, people talking behind your back, and people who intentionally seek to hurt you. The best thing you can do for yourself, however, is to forgive them.
Forgive them? How can I forgive them? Do you know what they did to me?
You are right, I don’t know what exactly they did to you. However, I acknowledge that you experienced something terrible by the words and/or actions of other(s). As a result, you’ve experienced a lot of grief, anger, and possibly even loss. I am truly and genuinely sorry for that. But, speaking from my own experience, if you don’t forgive those that hurt you, you will become bitter. Unforgiveness keeps you trapped in a mental cage of bitterness. That bitterness will grow and prevent you from letting new, genuine people in. It prevents you from moving forward and from being genuinely happy.
As I mentioned in my previous post about forgiveness, unforgiveness can and will negatively affect your health if not dealt with properly. So forgiveness is actually a bigger deal than what we initially thought. Please read my post about Forgiveness.
Forgiving someone that wronged you isn’t easy. In fact…
To truly forgive someone for their wrong-doing requires the help of Jesus Christ.
Admitting to the Lord how this person made you feel when they did or said x, y, z to the Lord is the first step. God is your father that loves and cares for you more than you can imagine. Talk to Him as a close, true friend. He is listening.
Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
- Romans 12: 19 (NKJV)
For the sake of not repeating myself, please read my Forgiveness post for my testimony on how I learned to forgive two individuals that seriously hurt me. But even for the individuals I mentioned in this post, I took the situation to the Lord and asked Him to help me to forgive them. I was mad and didn’t find it remotely easy to forgive them, but I didn’t want to crawl back into that cage of unforgiveness. It took some time. I sometimes even found myself praying and asking the Lord daily for help forgiving them. But every day I asked, I surrendered that hurt and pain to Him. Every day that I surrendered that hurt and pain to Him, I prayed for those individuals and released them to Him.
But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!
- Matthew 5: 44 (NLT)
Eventually I no longer felt pain or resentment towards those individuals. In fact, I still keep in touch with some of these individuals to some degree (just not like before).
Hurt people hurt people.
That is why it is so important to pray for those that hurt you. They are only acting out of their own hurt. Some even take pleasure in gossiping because that makes them feel better about themselves and their own issues. So even though they hurt you, pray for them.
To read more about Forgiveness, check out my previous post from August 2020 called “Forgiveness”.
As promised, here is “Smiling Faces Sometimes” by The Undisputed Truth.
