My husband introduced me to the book, “When To Walk Away, Finding Freedom From Toxic People” by Gary Thomas during a time we were in navigating our ministry where a few people’s relationships with us became exceedingly difficult. My passion is to point others toward Christ, to serve, and to live life with the people in our ministry. A couple of them made it impossible to do that as they put up fences, created unhealthy boundaries, and made it hard at times for me to stay focused on Christ and to point others in the church to Him.
A couple of principles that the book taught me were: 1) to double down on prayer; and 2) to call out the toxic person so they will not have the ability to destroy the church; and 3) to guard my heart (Proverbs 4:23 CSB, “Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.”).
Reading this book helped me understand that it is okay to let people go that consistently keep me away from my mission of serving and being faithful to God. In his book Thomas speaks of labels. It is not name-calling as he explains, “Name-calling is about hurting, demeaning, and using words as a weapon. Labeling is about understanding. It can heal and point the way forward” (p 90). This book gives the necessary tools to help when dealing with difficult and toxic people. Thomas includes examples of how Christ walked away at times so that we, too, can learn when and why to walk away.
My prayer is that you remain laser-focused on your mission and use this book to navigate yourself when people become extremely difficult, toxic, and try to pull you away from Christ.
