You may be a frenemy without knowing it. Read this post to confirm if you are one or not…
True friendship is that relationship you have with an individual who isn’t your relative, neither are you bonded by any vows to be true to them, yet, you truly love, cherish and care about them and, will do anything in your power to ensure they are comfortable. The Bible even testifies that two heads are better that one (Ecclesiastes 4:9) and Proverbs 27:9 also says:
“The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense.”
If true friendship is this beautiful and everyone wishes to have a friend that they can lean on, then why are there so many complaints of mistrusts and betrayal among ‘friends’ recently? This phenomenon is so bad that the radio station that I listen to at dawn has dedicated the entire week to praying against bad friends (can you imagine?) 😯. This implies bad friendships are gradually creeping into our churches and among Christians.🙄
There must be a thin line between being a genuine friend and gradually taking on the status of an enemy. I don’t want to believe anyone sets out to want to be a bad friend and cause heartaches to another person (I may be wrong, though) but the process of becoming a ‘frenemy’ may start in the mind, in the form of tiny droplets of envy and could later degenerate into actions which may be detrimental to a relationship. That is why the Bible encourages us to guard our hearts with all diligence (Proverbs 4:23) because all of a sudden, the friendship that people cherished so much could detonate into a rivalry, transforming two people into ‘frenemies’ and the results are not pleasant.
All is not lost, we can still be good friends with each other but first, we need to do some introspection. These 15 signs listed below should help you determine if you are ‘frenemies’ towards certain people.
You are/may be a ‘frenemy’ when…
- You do not genuinely pray for the progress of your friends.
- You can’t stand to see the progress of your friends. You either want to be on the same or a higher level than they are and would, therefore, do everything in your capacity to ensure that.
- You thrive on unhealthy competition and, therefore, would want to be ahead of everyone, including your friends.
- You stop checking up on friends when you notice they have advanced in certain areas of their lives. For instance, they have new jobs, gotten married, travelled, etc.
- You only check up on your friends to see what’s new so you can silently ‘pray’ evil prayers for them.
- You only check up on your friends when you need their help.
- You do not want to offer a helping hand to your friends even though you are ‘up there.’
- Your heart skips a beat (out of envy) when you see their social media updates and that makes you want to probe further into their lives to see what’s new.
- You provoke your friends to bare their hearts to you only for you to blackmail them with that information or use that as fuel for your gossip.
- You always want to take from them but not give out.
- You start hating because your friend (in your opinion) has not experienced enough challenges like what you have, hence, does not deserve their blessing.
- You feel better after discovering the flaws of your friends. That amuses you.
- You can’t give genuine compliments to your friends.
- You are relieved when you are not in their presence because you pretend when you are with them.
- You are always looking for ways to outdo each other (rivalry).
Do you display any of these sentiments towards a friend or group of friends? You should probably stop referring to them as friends and start calling them your ‘frenemies.’😀 That is the first step to the healing process. You need to admit you are keeping a toxic relationship if you display any of these traits and find ways of cleaning it up or running away from it.
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The Christian Blog 