When Hitting the “Unfriend” Button is You’re Most Sincere Act of Friendship

~written by Denyse Blasdel

My cursor hovers over the “yes” button.  Am I sure I want to unfriend this person?  No I don’t want to.  My friend is beautiful, kind, thoughtful, funny and smart.  Everything I’ve ever wanted to be.  On top of it all, she was so approachable.  No matter how shy or awkward I felt, she made me feel like I had something worthwhile to share.  

I can feel Satan staring at me with quiet disbelief.  “Seriously?  Are you going to play judge this time?  We both know what you’ve done.  All the pride.  The desperate grasping at attention.  The utter contempt for your blessings most people will never get?  Is this what you call friendship, abandoning her in her darkest hour?”  As usual, Satan’s half right.  My sins may be different, but not any better.  And she was there for me with words of encouragement when I had a preemie newborn and two other children to care for.  If the roles were reversed, she’d be by my side with her gentle nature, leading me out of the forest of destruction. 

But the Bible is very specific about this kind of sin.  As if God were saying to me, “Yes, I really meant that,” I Corinthians 5 pops up in my daily devotions.  I want to beg God, “Can’t we just ignore this, just this one time?  Don’t you know how much good she’s inspired me to do?  Can’t that outweigh this wrong?  Just this once?”  But of course it can’t.  

But the last part of I Corinthians 5:5 says, “so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.”  God is telling me I have to walk away from someone who won’t walk away from her sin not to punish or pretend I have a right to judge, but as the only hope we have to bring her back.  God knows everything, and He knows nothing else can possibly work.

In the end, my heartbroken spirit knows God is right and I hit the “unfriend” button.  Not out of anger or retribution or some sick sense of superiority.  Not even out of a sense of justice.  I press “unfriend” because I am painfully aware of what my sin has cost me, and I care about my friend enough to try to warn her away from the same burden.  So like the prodigal son’s father checking the horizon daily, I wait for an email or phone call that may never come.  And I pray for the wisdom to heal if it does.  And no matter what, I trust God when He says that leaving this space of friendship empty is the only way to be a light of help for her.