How You Can Overcome Betrayal

Betrayal is as old as humankind.  A strong alliance or partnership is suddenly dissolved.  Close, intimate friends are wounded.  Cynicism sets in as it seems “no one can be trusted.”

There’s hope after betrayal. 

We’ve all been there (including me) and I can help you with a few perspectives:

1.  Don’t confuse betrayal with feedback. 

Many people think everything is betrayal.  It’s not.  If someone is trying to give you feedback and you refuse it, their “moving on” is not necessarily betrayal.  It is a frustration that you were unwilling to change.

Did they willfully try to deceive and destroy me?  Were they acting positively but inwardly they were preparing a plan of retaliation?  “His speech was smooth as butter…yet war was in his heart” (Ps. 55:21).  THAT’S BETRAYAL.

2.  Betrayal is harder the closer they were.

When you take a person into your confidence, you don’t expect they are gathering information to damage or destroy you.  You trusted their motives, their words, their intentions.  You are shocked when they turn on you.

“It is not an enemy who taunts me…it is you, a man my equal, my companion, my familiar friend” (Ps. 55:12-13).  God experienced betrayal from Lucifer and His covenant people.  Loyalty and covenant friendships are one of His highest qualities.  Jesus experienced it with Judas.  It’s a part of relationships we must expect without projecting it on every other healthy, sincere relationship. 

3.  God is on the side of the betrayed.

Innocence and trust in relationships is never foolish.   If you have been betrayed, you can relax.  God is on your side.  He will resist the person who has betrayed you.  Their way will be hard.  Their only way out of the curse they have begun is to repent to God and ask you for forgiveness.

“He redeems my soul in safety from the battle I wage, for many are arrayed against me” (Ps. 55:18).  You may feel like the whole world is against you.  Your betrayer may have turned many people falsely against you.  Turn them all over to God for Him to defend you.

4. Don’t get down on their level.

Betrayal (and all its daily results) can get into your head.  You re-construct in your mind the crestfallen moment you found out.  You go back over conversations that should have alerted you.  You think of smarter ways to counteract their lies against you.

“Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be moved” (Ps. 55:22).

Can you move on?  Can you turn them over to the Lord?  Can you even pray for them the way Christ did on the cross?  Can you change the subject when their name is mentioned?  Can you continue to grow as a person and correct any mistakes you made in the relationship?  Can you draw even closer to healthy, loyal friends who have proved that loyalty by their faithfulness?

Betrayal is deadly.  No human experience is worse. 

The good news is this:  You can overcome it.