Betrayed

Betrayed

After the world found out that Lance Armstrong lied about doping, he told all on Oprah’s famous couch. When Oprah asked about one individual whom he sued into ruin for suggesting he had cheated, Lance said he couldn’t remember the details. “We sued a lot of people,” he told her.^a

Celebrities, athletes, politicians, heads of state—not all are forthcoming with the truth. We may be disappointed in them, but we are not personally wounded by their lies. We may trust them, want to believe they are good, look up to them, even. But we don’t know the Lance Armstrongs of the world, and they don’t know us. They’re not family or friends.

The real wounds come when the lies live closer to home. Down the hall, in the next pew or cubicle—or even on the other side of the bed. Then it’s personal. Then the betrayal is tougher to bear. Sin stains everything. There’s no Tide to Go pen or magic wipe to clean up the ancillary mess of betrayal. We’re broken, all of us. And we have within our broken hearts more than enough potential to break others, too. If we think a smooth facade or a shiny exterior is enough to hide the darkness within the betrayer or the betrayed, we are sorely mistaken. “What’s inside defiles the man,” Jesus said (see Mark 7:20).

I don’t know who celebrities like Lance Armstrong follow—but Christ followers should be true to the core. True inside out. Yet hypervigilance won’t make that so. Religious rule-keeping won’t either. We will be changed only by acknowledging the wretchedness of our prideful independence and clinging in dependence to Christ’s righteousness. Only he transforms, heals, and makes new.

We in the family of faith must forgive one another. Betrayal—especially in the family—causes terrible pain and has the power to divide. But forgiveness is a form of voluntary suffering. We can choose it—and we must—because our own forgiveness has been bought by the voluntary suffering of God himself.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He counts the number of the stars; he gives names to all of them. Great is our Lord and abundant in strength; his understanding is infinite.

Psalm 147:3-5, NASB

^a Gordon Farquhar, “Lance Armstrong: Seven Unanswered Questions,” BBC: Sport, January 18, 2013, http://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/21085940.