Mental Health: When to Walk Away by Gary Thomas

Show Notes

Promo: Making Time

You have the same 24 hours in your day as the most accomplished people in the world. So why doesn't it feel that way? Follow along on this special 6 episode series as we take a look at how to make more time. By following biblical principles and taking a look at what you really want, Making Time shares the secret to having all the time you need... with a little help from some friends.

Learn more and download group guides at https://lumivoz.com/making-time/

For questions, comments, or sharing your tips on how to make more time, reach out to [e-mail]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In this careful study of the encounters Jesus had with toxic people, Gary Thomas shows us we can follow Jesus’ example of walking away from toxic people and walking toward healthy relationships.

 

Watch the video of Session One

Get information on the Study Guide 

 

Study Gateway is a streaming video Bible study service that gives instant access to video studies taught by hundreds of the world's most influential Christian authors, teachers and pastors, published HarperChristian Resources. Subscriptions plans are available for personal use, for small groups, and for whole churches. Learn more at StudyGateway.com.

Creators & Guests

Guest

Gary Thomas

Gary Thomas is a writer in residence at Second Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, and an adjunct faculty member teaching on spiritual formation at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon and Houston Theological Seminary in Houston, Texas. He is the author of 20 books, including When to Walk Away, Sacred Marriage, Sacred Pathways, Cherish, Sacred Parenting, and the Gold Medallion Award-winning Authentic Faith. He has a master’s degree from Regent College, where he studied under Dr. J.I. Packer, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in divinity from Western Seminary. Gary has spoken in 49 states and 9 different countries. He has appeared numerous times on various national radio and television programs, including CBN, Focus on the Family and FamilyLife Today.

What is Study Gateway First Listens?

Study Gateway's First Listens: Find your next Bible study! Join host Shelley Leith as she curates first sessions of Bible studies on various themes each season, taught by some of the world’s most influential Christian authors, teachers, and pastors. To learn more, visit https://StudyGateway.com.

First Listens Season 2: Episode 5
When to Walk Away
By Gary Thomas

[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY LEITH: Hi there! I’m Shelley Leith, host of Study Gateway’s First Listens, where you get first listens of the first sessions on Study Gateway so you can find your next video Bible study.

We’re in Season 2 of First Listens, a season all about mental health. I’m bringing you sessions from seven Bible studies that deal with different aspects of mental health. So far we’ve heard about depression from Chris Hodges in Out of the Cave, people pleasing from Karen Ehman’s When Making Others Happy Makes You Miserable, emotional un-healthiness from Pete Scazzero in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, and last week was about anxiety in Rebekah Lyons’s study, Rhythms of Renewal. After this week be hearing from Jennie Allen, Lecrae. All these pastors and authors have published their studies with HarperChristian Resources, and we stream their videos on Study Gateway. Once you have a taste of these first sessions, you’ll know which ones you’ve just got to do the rest of, and today’s pick might be just the one you need.

This week’s episode is from When to Walk Away by Gary Thomas. Gary courageously addresses a topic we rarely talk about in the church, and probably are more likely to avoid. It’s the topic of toxic people. If you’ve ever had a toxic person in your life, you know how much they can mess with your mind, and every other aspect of your life. Gary points out that even Jesus had to deal with toxic people, and when he did, he did not let them walk all over him. Let’s listen to “Follow Jesus’ Example” from When to Walk Away.
[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING] GARY THOMAS: Greg came to me for advice years ago, beside himself by how frustrated he was with a toxic coworker named Aaron. Though Aaron claimed to be a Christian, he attacked others ruthlessly. He specialized in creating offensive nicknames for his co-workers. He was a master sleuth at uncovering personal secrets, and spreading them with juicy gossip. He blatantly lied about co-workers to pit one person against another. And he sought to control everything in the office, even though he wasn't the boss.

The toxic work environment was impacting Greg's physical health, his mental state, his family life, and even his sleep. He kept thinking about it. He couldn't forget about Aaron, even when he wasn't at the office. He couldn't understand why Aaron wanted to control everything. And he was really confused about how Aaron could claim to be a Christian when he acted that way.

I'm sure I'd be embarrassed by my weak response. I didn't have any experience of working with individuals like that. It wasn't until much later in my life-- in fact, after a couple decades of additional ministry-- that I finally understood sometimes the best strategy for dealing with toxic people in our lives like Aaron is to follow the example of Jesus and just walk away.
[MUSIC PLAYING]

For years, my wife, who may be the healthiest eater in the world, has been trying to get me to go on an elimination diet. And for years, I resisted. But following some blood tests, I finally agreed that I would go through an elimination diet, which is basically removing foods that you might react negatively to, that might be making you feel a little bit sick.

The problem for someone like me going on an elimination diet is that you don't get to eat anything you like. And in a case of terrible timing, I agreed to do it over my birthday. Because of the calories, I don't eat cake and ice cream very often. Maybe twice a year. It's one of my favorite foods, but I just can't handle the calories.

And so our hostess, who had me over for my birthday dinner, didn't know I was on this elimination diet. And I had to watch five other people eat my birthday cake and ice cream. That evening, I told my wife, you have no idea how I'm going to splurge when this stupid diet is over. My wife responded, you can't do that. It takes weeks to come off an elimination diet.

I said, what are you talking about? She goes, well, you introduce foods again one at a time. Well, how does that work? She goes, well, you tested for cranberries. So the first day we'll give you a few cranberries and wait a day or two and see how you react. I don't even like cranberries! What doctor from hell thought up this diet?

The thinking behind an elimination diet is that if you remove toxic foods that are making you a little bit sick, you're going to be a lot healthier. What if the same principle is true for our families, churches, and personal ministry? If we remove toxic people from our life?

I never thought about this idea. For my whole life, I was focused on playing offense, spiritually speaking. I wanted to read God's Word, grow in prayer, surrender to the Holy Spirit, be involved in fellowship. Trying to create the kind of life that would compel people to respond to the Gospel.

Now, playing offense matters. Our ministry is that important. And there are two aspects of our offense that I think are essential for any viable ministry. Just like every sport can really be summed up by two things. I think for baseball, I remember they told me you've got to keep your elbow up, and you've got to keep the weight on your back foot. In basketball, they tell you got to keep your elbow tucked in, and the palms should never touch the ball, it's all fingers. For running, it's keep your head up, and everything's going forward. You don't want sideways, everything's going forward.

The same thing for ministry. What are the two things, if you're just giving two pieces of advice? I think those two things come from two separate Scriptures. The first is Matthew 6:33, when Jesus said, "seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness." It's a notion where I wake up and my first thought is, how can I be involved in doing the work of God's Kingdom? What does He want me to do as He's building His Kingdom? What's His agenda, not my agenda?

And part of that is lived out in another verse, 2 Timothy 2:2, where we're told, "and the things you have heard Me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others." So we want to be generous to all, but according to 2 Timothy 2:2, also focused on a few.
And we see this in the life of Jesus. He was all about the Kingdom. Every day was an opportunity for Him to be surrendered to the Heavenly Father's work. And while He had a wide ministry, He was also focused on a few. Now, by definition, focusing on some requires us to occasionally walk away from others. And that's where spiritual defense comes in.

Christians have a tendency to think that walking away from anyone, or letting anyone walk away from the truth, is a failure on our part. But Jesus walked away, or let others walk away from Him a lot.
I used to think, if I could just become a little holier, a little wiser, more loving, a little more patient, a bit more knowledgeable about the Bible, maybe more surrendered to the Holy Spirit, then everyone would see Jesus in me, and line up to hear what God has to say. When someone didn't respond, or even became hostile, I thought, is there compromise in my life holding me back? Were my words lacking grace? Did I not hear God correctly? I might double down on trying to reach the unreachable.

But what's true in sports is also true in ministry. You need more than a good offense. You also need a good defense. A friend of mine who recognized my frustration, Dr. Steve Wilkie, said to me one time, Gary, read the book of Luke. Jesus walked away from people many, many times. With new eyes, I saw how frequently Jesus walked away. And that's when I started focusing on playing defense.

And you might ask, well, who are you playing defense from? And that's toxic people. We'll define them a little more specifically in the next session. But for now, there are certain people who drain us, they demean us, they distract us from other healthy relationships. The kind of people who keep us awake at night. We dodge them every chance we get. We might even keep fighting with them, even when they're not with us. They steal our joy and peace. And overall, they make us weaker spiritually.

They're toxic, and we know they're toxic. But perhaps they're a lifelong friend, a relative, or a co-worker. You can't avoid all troublesome people, can you? And aren't we supposed to reach difficult people? Didn't Jesus tell us to search out sinners? So we keep engaging them. We keep running into a wall, all the while thinking we're doing the Lord's work.

But what if we're not? What if there's another way of looking at how we handle toxic people in our lives? What if the way and work of Christ is so compelling, so urgent, and so important, that allowing ourselves to become bogged down by toxic people is an offense to God, rather than a service to God?
In fact, I believe that toxic people may represent one of Satan's most clever attacks against God's work on this earth. Satan can't stop us from caring, because the Holy Spirit within us compels us to care. We want to spread His love around. We want to reach those who are even difficult to reach.

But if we look at God's good grace, and love, and truth as this pure fountain of water that He pours through us, His design is that we would pour that water into fertile fields and have a huge crop of a response. Satan knows he can't stop the water from flowing. So what he tries to do is, instead of having us pour that water out onto fertile fields, he wants us to pour it straight into the gutter of toxic people. People who will never be changed, people who will actually just resent what we're trying to do.

After my conversation with Dr. Willkie, I reread all four Gospels, not just the Gospel of Luke. I counted every occurrence where Jesus deliberately parted ways with others. I counted 41 times where an engagement with someone left Jesus to walk away from that person, or that person to walk away from Him. Now, some of those are the same occurrences, because of the synaptic Gospels. But it still left a couple dozen occasions where Jesus chose to walk away.

Sometimes He spoke a hard truth, following which the other person walked away. Other times, the people had been touched and begged Jesus to stay, but Jesus had other places to go, and He left them. One thing you never see when people walked away is Jesus giving chase. Not even once.

[MUSIC PLAYING]
Isn’t that fascinating? Have you ever thought of Jesus’ encounters with people in terms of how many ended with him walking away from them, or them walking away from him? When to Walk Away, by Gary Thomas, is such a fantastic study. It’s published by HarperChristian Resources and it streams on Study Gateway. Study Gateway is a streaming video service, and we’re the only one that has a subscription plan especially for small groups. For our First Listens listeners, we are offering an exclusive rate on our small group plan. When you use the promo code FIRST at studygateway.com, you’ll get a small group plan for up to 20 people for only $15.99/month, a 20% savings. And, for a complete experience with When to Walk Away, take advantage of our publisher-direct pricing on the essential study guide designed to be used with the videos. You’ll get the video notes, discussion questions, Bible passages to dig into together as a group, and challenges to try between sessions to apply this material to your own life. Get all the details at Studygateway.com.

And now, let’s return to Gary Thomas.

[MUSIC PLAYING] GARY THOMAS: I think of the rich young ruler. While I don't believe he seemed to be a toxic person, Jesus said a hard truth, that if you really want to follow Me, give away everything you have. And he couldn't receive that, and he walked away. Jesus didn't chase after him. He didn't try to lessen the demands, maybe being a little more persuasive. Instead, here's what He did. He turned to His disciples, the reliable people, the few, and He said, let me explain to you why it's so difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God.

In a particularly painful account from Matthew 8-- you may remember when Jesus healed a man possessed of demons, and the demons asked to go into this herd of pigs. Jesus gave the demons permission, they went into the pigs, and the pigs rushed off the cliff, and they died. An entire town saw its welfare, its business interests, go down the cliff. In a crude sense, this town chose pork chops over salvation. We're told in Matthew 8, "then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw Him, they pleaded with Him to leave their region."

The reason this is so painful to me is I just think-- well, I'll ask you. What would you pay to spend a weekend with the incarnate Jesus? To be able to see Him, and watch Him, and hear Him with your ears? I mean, those of us who love Jesus, we can't even imagine what it would be like to have a personal visit like that.

They have that visit, and they're asking Him to leave? Talk about offensive. But Jesus didn't argue with them. We're told in the very next verse, Matthew 9:1, after they said, please leave, quote, "Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to His own town."

There are many accounts like this. But it reminds me of some years ago, there were these popular plastic bracelets. WWJD, what would Jesus do? For other reasons, I was never that big of a fan of those things. But for ministry-minded people, instead of WWJD, we might want to do WWJND, what would Jesus not do? And the answer is, He wouldn't chase after them.

There is a terrible messianic complex in many of us, that somehow thinks if we were more intelligent, a little holier, if we fasted and prayed a bit more, then everyone we shared the truth with would agree with us, and welcome God into their hearts. That didn't happen for the real Messiah, and it certainly won't happen for us.

It's OK to walk away when people resist the truth, and it's OK to let them walk away. We're told to spend our time finding the willing, the reliable people, and invest the bulk of our time there. The best ministry isn't just about playing offense. We have to learn how to play good defense as well.

Jesus didn't just model this mastery of His calendar, He specifically taught His disciples to do the same. Remember these words, "if anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet." He also said, "when you are persecuted in one place, flee to another." He doesn't say, stay there and let them hit you, because they might finally come to their senses. No, He gives His disciples permission-- even more than that, a commandment-- to flee from those hurting them, and go to another place.

Though Jesus came to die the death of a martyr, He didn't allow consistent and persistent abuse to continue throughout His life. He did allow himself to be tortured and crucified once. But there were many occasions when He slipped away from those who wanted to hurt Him.

We could talk about half a dozen, but let me just give you two. One from the Gospel of John, chapter 8:59, we read this. "At this, they picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus hid Himself, slipping away from the temple grounds." And here's one from Matthew. "But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place."

Your persecution may not be physical stoning. It might be emotional shaming, gaslighting, slander, who knows. And we can't run from all persecution. But we also shouldn't assume all persecution is ours to endure. We're told sometimes it's best to walk away. In His words and in His practice, Jesus modeled how to let people go, and how to walk away ourselves.

If you want the most impactful life, follow in the footsteps of Jesus by boldly walking away, and finding a reliable person in whose life you can make a wise investment.
[MUSIC PLAYING]

I got a call from Greg a few years back. He told me he had not seen or talked to Aaron for 15 years. But then one day, an email from Aaron showed up in his inbox. Aaron said that he was going to sue Greg, and that Greg better hire a lawyer. Now, for the record, Aaron never actually filed the lawsuit, but it's clear he hadn't changed his ways. And as Greg learned, toxic people don't like to let go. They don't let go, because they can't stand the thought of someone escaping their personal pollution. We'll talk about why this is in later sessions.

Esther Fleece discovered the same. Today, Esther is a writer and speaker who has worked for a number of national ministries. She's drawn attention from organizations like CNN, USA Today, Christianity Today, and others. Her life is a story of God's gracious mercy, in calling a woman out of a dysfunctional childhood.

Growing up, her dad and mom both had issues-- we'll leave it at that. And one of her survival tactics as a young girl was to write a journal, pouring out her frustrations and questions as she wrestled with the challenge of trying to make sense out of living in a dysfunctional home.

One of the worst days of her life occurred in a courtroom. Her mom and dad were getting a divorce, and a judge was deciding who she would live with. And as part of her father's case against her mother, her father's lawyer held up this clear plastic baggie that had her journal. Esther couldn't believe it. Those were her most private thoughts. And having them entered as evidence against her mother, and read out loud, she couldn't believe it. She collapsed crying. And she was saying to herself, I will never write another word again.

Though this took years, ultimately, the court found that neither mother nor father were fit to raise Esther, and she was taken in by a wonderful Christian couple. She set her roots deep in Christ, and began a life of great ministry. She set up her first apartment by herself. And if you've never been from a dysfunctional home, you may not understand how much it meant to her to have this safe sanctuary. Where everything was set up just the way she liked it, where she would invite friends in for dinners or Bible studies.

And one day, her father found out where she lived. He had heard some of her influence. He began stalking her. He violated that safe place. It was horrifying for Esther. Fortunately, she was part of a strong church that supported her. They got her to put a restraining order on her father. And when her father broke the restraining order, he ended up going to jail.

It was hard for Esther, because she wanted to ask herself, what kind of daughter puts her father in jail? But the answer is, a daughter who is called by God to a tremendous work, and who's being supported wisely so by a church that understands the truth of how to deal with a toxic person, and how to play defense. Esther was defending the good work God had called her to do.

And here's what's so exciting. Remember the promise Esther made to never write another word again? This is what I so love about the work of Jesus. This is why we Christians worship Him so enthusiastically. Because we've seen Him do this time and time again. He'll address our worst hurts. He'll take people from the worst backgrounds, and do incredible things.

Because that young girl who cried out, I will never write another word again, actually not only wrote another word, she wrote a book called No More Faking Fine that talks about the power of lament to bring spiritual healing.

I was blessed to be in the Country Music Hall of Fame when the book launch was announced. They had a dinner right in the center of the Hall of Fame, where they have plaques of all of the great country music stars through the years.

Esther presented the book brilliantly. She pointed at all of these plaques, and she said, how many songs of lament are represented in this Hall of Fame? And everybody laughed. I mean, when you think of a country music song, you kind of think of lament. And then she said prophetically, how many books in Christian bookstores talk about lament? And we were all silent.

And we saw what had happened. That she had this powerful spiritual offense to bring back a helpful spiritual practice, learning the positive aspect of lament to help us heal, and to move forward. But in order for that offense to be launched, and to be protected, Esther had to learn how to play defense and walk away, even from a toxic parent.
[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY LEITH: Wow. What a powerful story. Thanks for listening in today to When to Walk Away by Gary Thomas, published by HarperChristian Resources and streaming on Study Gateway. Here at Study Gateway you can find your favorite authors, pastors and Bible teachers, all in one place. We’re the only streaming video subscription service that offers a small group-sized plan, AND has user-based pricing for churches, no matter what the size. And don’t forget, you can use the promo code FIRST to get a 20% savings on a small group plan. What does 20% mean to your pocketbook? It means you’re going to save $4/month, so instead of $19.99/month, you’ll pay only 15.99/month for your entire small group of up to 20 people, which works out to only 80 cents per person per month!

With Study Gateway, you also get a direct link to our store, where you get publisher-direct pricing on the essential Bible study guide for When to Walk Away; a study guide designed to help you remember what you’ve learned in the videos, guide your discussion of your insights with others, dig deeper into what the Bible says about this topic, and apply what you’re learning to your life. Is When to Walk Away going to be your next study? Get started right now by going to studygateway.com, click start free trial, choose the monthly small group plan, and use the promo code FIRST.

Come back next week for Episode 6 in the Mental Health season, for Jennie Allen’s Get Out of Your Head, which addresses how we can deal with our spiraling thought patterns. Make sure you rate and review this podcast so other people can find this show too. See you next time on Study Gateway’s First Listens.
[MUSIC PLAYING]