Build A Bridge

An offended friend is harder to win back than a fortified city.Arguments separate friends like a gate locked with bars.

Proverbs 18:19

Today we’re going to talk about the offended friend. I feel confident that someone reading today has a serious rift with someone whom you used to be close to. I can see you now. You have your emotional arms folded like a fortified city.

William Blake once said, “It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.” I think he must have spoken from experience. So how do we forgive and forget with someone we trusted and loved so deeply? They say, “The wounds that come from the closest, wound the deepest.”

Such rifts are as old as humanity. Esau was angry with Jacob. Joseph’s brothers were angry with Joseph. Even Paul and Barnabas had a serious disagreement and separation. And in the fourth chapter of the book of Philippians, Paul addressed two women, Euodia and Syntyche. Who knows how their problem got started, but when Paul writes, they are stuck. He reminds them that their names are written in the Book of Life. Maybe he was hinting that their mansions in heaven might be next door to each other, so they’d better make up now. What is so serious that we can’t just build a bridge and get over it?

First John 4:20-21 challenges us. “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother [or sister], he is a liar. . . . And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also” (NKJV).

Make It Personal . . . Live It Out!

What is the secret to restoring broken relationships? First, stop being so stubborn. Begin to surrender your own hurt feelings. Let go of your pride; hang on to love. Be tenacious! Never give up on love. Never stop remembering the good that is in the other person. “No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us” (1 John 4:12). So keep going back to Jesus, asking him to fill you with his compassion and grace. Then, walk it out. Ask him to give you a tangible action to build a bridge of kindness. Then, do it, because “love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:8, NKJV).

One Year Bible Reading

1 Chronicles 4:5–5:17; Acts 25:1-27; Psalm 5:1-12; Proverbs 18:19