Consider This - Dealing with Fake Friends
I’ve been sitting on writing this post for awhile and thought that as I’m recovering from a little medical procedure I had the other day, I would share a few thoughts.
A few years ago I was introduced to a circle of people in business and also a different circle of people who were in direct sales. I was the outcast of the bunch because I was deemed “religious” and people really didn’t know what to do with me. Some people saw me as “so and so’s” friend, and they had zero regard for me as a person. Didn’t matter what I did, they didn’t care.
Then one day, I had a guy reach out to me and offer to interview me on his podcast that had no audience. I said I would be happy to do the show, knowing no one would hear it. Because that is who I am as a person. That’s also what Amy Grant did for me when I was first starting out in my online media career.
In fact, when I was asked about how I got my start, I shared the Amy Grant story with him because it really had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with her and her character. Just turns out that God answered my prayer and humored me. By the way, if you want to hear the first interview Amy Grant did on a podcast, it was mine, and you can hear that 20 year old interview inside my Heart Tug International mobile app. Just go to the app stores and download it.
Anyway, I bring this up because in the direct sales world of people I was exposed to and apart of, one of the first things I noticed was how the women formed an “arm” in the company to “empower” women. I personally thought it was stupid, because I’m confident and don’t need to be “empowered”. But, the “superstars” in direct sales, they like to parade around because these folks were “successful” in their direct sales careers.
I didn’t fit in there either. I reached out to many of these ladies who were pretending to be my friend and I knew all along they didn’t care about me as a person. I wrote cards of encouragement to them, knowing they didn’t care about me and wouldn’t reciprocate. Because they are fake friends. I find them very easy to spot.
But then one day, one of the women wrote a book and I offered to interview her on my show. I did it as a kindness and not because I thought my audience would care about the book because most didn’t. But it blessed this woman so much and as a result she not only blessed my ministry with a pretty large donation a few months later, but she also secretly started sending me a gift every month in the mail. She doesn’t know I know it was her, but Amazon told me. (And believe me, I had NO idea she was going to do anything for me because no guests ever did!)
I figured out that she spent over $1000 on the product she sent my husband and me every month for about 3 years and recently we noticed that it stopped coming and now we buy the product for ourselves. It’s a vitamin, in case you’re curious.
So why am I sharing this? Because that woman is a friend who actually acts like Jesus told His people to act. Instead of posting on social media that she gave my ministry a few thousand dollars, she did it quietly and in secret.
She also calls me up on occasion to check in and she always has a kind word on her tongue. And God forbid, should she die before I do, and I have to go to her memorial service, I would bet that there would be a ton of people at her service who would share similar stories.
The other folks that are fake friends, are in a word - selfish. Direct sales is full of phonies. People are trained in a cult like setting with cult like tactics and they do it all for the money. They lie when they claim they are in it for the relationships, because that’s not true unless you fit into their mold of what a leader is.
When I was actively selling a service in direct sales, I never sold to anyone to get the money. In fact, I often persuaded others to not buy the service. My provider is the Lord and my goal was to serve my client, not use them for my own advantage.
So why am I bringing this up… to toot my own horn? No. Of course not. But I bring it up because I’ve discovered that some people think you’re stupid because you’re a Christian. They look down on you. They dismiss your “ministry”. They think that you have no brain. Yet, it’s all based on their beliefs and it has nothing to do with you.
I believe in doing kind things for others. I recently wrote a nice book review for someone that isn’t my friend. She pretends to be mine, but when I’ve reached out to have a conversation, she isn’t interested. She just blows me off. But, after I wrote the nice review, which is honest and I meant every word I wrote, then all of a sudden she’s “humbled”.
Why is that?
It’s not because she has any real respect for me as a person or what I’ve done in my career in ministry. She’s not interested in getting to know me. But when you’re kind to others, and don’t expect anything in return, that’s the type of thing that comes out.
Here’s another interesting thing I’ve had to deal with. This is the ironic part. On the one hand I’ve had these “fake friends” in direct sales. I’ve already described those.
On the other hand, I’ve had just as many fake friends in ministry. These are the folks who kiss up to me, they will do things for me because of who I know and what I do. They don’t care about me as a person at all. And some of these folks will give money to my ministry thinking that it will be a way to control me. Or it will give them access to me and my inner circle and because of that, then they think they can abuse me and boss me around. It’s amazing how many times that has happened.
Then, I have real friends who will bless my work because they like how I am ministering to others and they don’t get anything else in return. It’s a very interesting thing to note.
I recently told one of my best friends that if I never had to see who gave what to my small non-profit, that brings in around 363.85 a month, I wouldn’t. But, that’s what you do when you do everything at a young ministry.
It’s interesting for me to note that with the direct sales folks, they befriend you in order to make money and some of the ministry folks befriend you by giving money and then use it as a weapon and stop giving when you can’t be controlled by them.
The scriptures tell us that the LOVE of money is the root of all sorts of evil. It’s true. The reason for that is because when you have fake friends who love money over people and they love money over you, it’s tied to their heart. The heart is deceitfully wicked above all else. So we must be careful.
Ultimately this is a post about wheat and tares in relationships. They both reside together in our environments. We must be wise with our discernment and remember that our character is our responsibility. We can only control our thoughts, actions and beliefs. We cannot control anyone else.
Consider this the next time you are making friends. Is money involved? If so, check yourself.