Betrayal is a breaking of trust or a breach of contract between two people, or between a person and an organization, that produces a moral or psychological conflict. Betrayal is part of life, and the saddest thing about it is that it’s never your enemies who betray you. It’s always someone close to you; that’s the definition of betrayal.
Rarely can we see how, in the stone-cold aftermath of a betrayal, our reaction to a loved one’s treachery can define the trajectory of our lives. How you respond to being sold out, disposed of, cheated on, or stabbed in the back might determine your entire quality of life a year from now, or ten years from now.
Being betrayed is akin to stumbling upon a fork in the road of your life. One of the paths before you is called Rage Road; take it, and you’ll soon become hell-bent on hurting others just as bad as someone else hurt you. The other path is called Easy Street; take it, and you’ll find yourself saying “It’s fine” and “I’m over it” a dozen times a day. In truth, it’s not really fine and you’re anything but over it; you’re just hiding scars underneath layers of denial, alcohol, and other common coping mechanisms.
But another, less apparent path is available to you when you’ve been betrayed. It’s called the Heavenly Highway, and it’s illustrated repeatedly throughout the Bible. With this reflection, I’ll offer a few of the mile markers along the only path that leads to a better life beyond betrayal.
1. Surround Yourself with Godly People
One way to guard your heart against betrayal is by surrounding yourself with godly people. When Joseph was seventeen years old, God gave him a vision of what his future would look like. Genesis 37:5 says, “Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.”
There’s nothing wrong with having dreams of greatness, but you really have to be careful who you share those dreams with. Joseph’s brothers already envied him because their father loved Joseph more than them. So when Joseph dreamed of greatness and of his brothers one day bowing down to him, his brothers weren’t about to say, “That’s terrific, little brother! We fully support you and look forward to the day when we will bow down before you!”
Joseph’s mistake wasn’t dreaming of greatness; it was choosing to share his dream with people who weren’t ready for it. He chose to let unhealthy people in on his dream, and their reaction was entirely predictable.
If you want to guard your heart against betrayal, be careful who you trust with your dreams.
You might come from a well-adjusted, healthy family that supports and encourages your dreams, but most people aren’t so lucky. Some families make a habit of holding each other back and stepping on each other’s dreams. Some friends will do the same thing. If that sounds like your family and friends, be careful about sharing your God-given dreams with them.
Sometimes people from dysfunctional families find themselves in a pattern of dysfunctional relationships later in life because all they’ve ever known is dysfunction. When you decide to follow Jesus, one of the ways the Holy Spirit can change you is by helping you grow to become more comfortable around emotionally healthy, godly people who will listen to your God-given dreams, without envy or resentment, and then help you achieve them with prayer, accountability, and support.
2. Trust Jesus to Show You the Way Out
One day, when Joseph’s brothers had reached their limit, they attacked him, stripped him naked, and threw him into a pit. In ancient times, being in “the pit” was often symbolic of Sheol, which is how Hell is described in the Old Testament. Psalm 30:3 says, “O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.”
So the Pit is where you go when you’re dead. Dormant. Forgotten. Alone. After his brothers betrayed him, Joseph was basically in hell. On some level, that’s what all betrayal feels like.
If you really think about it, you’ve probably been there. If you grew up with parents who abused you or neglected you, or parents who were just absent, you’ve been in the Pit. If someone you love is an addict, you’ve been in the Pit. If a friend ever threw you under the bus, or if your church or denomination has ever made you feel disposable, you know that feeling. It hurts like hell.
Joseph’s story in Genesis was clearly a foreshadowing of Jesus’ story in the gospels. Joseph was destined for greatness; so was Jesus. Joseph was his father’s favorite; you could say the same thing about Jesus. Joseph’s brothers denied and betrayed him; so did Jesus’ brothers and disciples. Joseph’s brothers sold him for twenty pieces of silver; Judas sold Jesus for thirty. Joseph spent time in the pit, dead to the world, and Jesus did, too. Jesus was dead to the world from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning.
Many Christians believe that, between Friday and Sunday, Jesus didn’t simply Rest In Peace, but he stormed the gates of Hell. The Biblical evidence for this is scant, and you don’t have to believe Jesus descended into hell to be a Christian, but I personally love the thought of Jesus strutting into Hell on a Friday night. I like to imagine Satan, standing behind the bar, drying a whiskey tumbler with a dirty towel, grumbling to himself, “What the heaven is He doing here?”
But the reason I really love this idea is because if Jesus descended into Hell, you can be sure he knows the way out. So the next time somebody breaks your heart and you find yourself in the Pit, all you need is Jesus, because he can lead you out of it.
3. Don’t Leave the Dream Behind!
I’ve known too many people who go into the pit with a dream, and emerge from the pit without it. There’s a young couple – let’s call them Joe and Lisa – who I love so much and who struggled for years to get pregnant. For Joe, being a great father was always the dream. He had a great dad, and he always wanted to be a great dad. Lisa always felt just as strongly about being a mom. But after being married and infertile for ten years, every time somebody asked them, “How many kids do you have?” it felt like taking a bullet.
It was a living hell that affected every part of their relationship. When it looked like nothing was going to work, they made a conscious decision to give up the dream. When people asked them about kids, they’d say, “We don’t really want kids; we’re pretty career-driven. And besides, we love to travel…”
Saying things like that was how they got through the day, every day.
Around that time, they started going back to church. (They had stopped going before because there were so many families there and it hurt too much, but once they’d given up on their dream of being parents, they decided to go back.) As a way of combining their love for God with their love of traveling, they led a mission trip to China. To avoid getting arrested or worse by the CCP, they had to act like they were just doing secular social work in the orphanages they visited.
That’s where they found Sam, a 1 year old baby who’d been abandoned by his parents because he was deaf. It occurred to both of them why God had brought them to China. It wasn’t to help them forget their dream; it was to help them fulfill it.
A year later, my friends brought Sam home with them for the first time, and then a funny thing happened. Two months after they got home with Sam, Lisa found out she was pregnant, and eight or nine months after that, Sam had a brother named Aaron. As if that’s not miraculous enough, three years later, Joe, Lisa, Sam, and Aaron decided they had room in their hearts for one more, so they went back to China and adopted Jinny – a little girl with a chronic heart condition.
This is why, when Jesus leads you out of the Pit, you should never leave your God-given dream down there. You will always feel tempted to allow betrayal to reshape your dreams, but if you let him, Jesus will use your time in the Pit to make the fulfillment of your dream an even greater blessing than you imagined in the first place!
When you’re with Jesus, betrayal need not define your life or detract from the dreams God has given you. Surround yourself with godly people, trust that Jesus knows the way out of the pit, and don’t leave your God-given dreams behind. God can use the pain of a past betrayal to make His dream for your life a reality.
