Who’s In Your Inner Circle? Who Should be Out?

Over my five and a half decades of life I’ve had the misfortune of being in some toxic relationships. It started within my own family where one of my parents was an alcoholic, trapping me in a codependent relationship. Fortunately, in Christ I have been healed of the injuries that resulted from that relationship. But there have been others who wanted to pour toxins into my life. Some I could easily move far away from my inner circle. One in particular was a coworker who regularly tried to sell me on a very negative view of life. God eventually moved that person out to arms length where they could no longer make me a captive audience for their pontifications. As with this coworker, there are people who need to be held at a distance. Sometimes they sneak into our inner circle and we need to be honest and intentional about moving them back out.

In the Bible Samson allowed someone into his inner circle who never should have been there. He found Delilah to be attractive and seemed to enjoy her company. But at some point she became a negative influence as she worked on behalf of her people in order to try to betray Samson. In Judges 16:15-17 the Bible tells us that she pestered him to the point where “... his soul was vexed to death,...” (Judges 16:16 NKJV). Eventually he gave in to her pressure tactics, telling her the secret to his strength. As a result he lost his hair, his strength and the presence of the Lord in his life (Judges 17:20). In the end, because Samson kept Delilah in his inner circle he wound up paying a very steep price.

There are some relationships that we can’t get away from (like with an alcoholic parent). There are others where we can’t completely push the person out but we can keep them at arm's length, like coworkers or even church brethren. There are some relationships that we should get out of but the emotional attachments make it difficult. In all of these situations we need to call upon our God, asking for direction. We need to pray for the other person and for the grace to respond properly. It’s true that sometimes God puts us in a situation to influence people in the name of the Lord. But I believe there will be times when the Lord opens the door and tells us to move a person far, far away. When that happens, we need to pray for the courage to do so.