Walking Away at Work

One of the things I like best about writing books is hearing how creatively they’ve been applied. As a pastor, writer, and speaker, in many ways I live in a rather small world—and struggle sometimes to come up with clear applications for people from other walks of life. So I love getting emails like this:

“I’m a fifty-something entrepreneur embedded into a family business that is pulling me apart. I’ve endured years of gaslighting and manipulation within my family and by my employees. Yes, my own employees are empowered to gossip and demean me, while my business partners look the other way. Thanks to your book When to Walk Away, I’m no longer ‘turning the other cheek.’ I listened to chapter 10: Man on a Mission this morning on the way into work and I realize that knowing my mission and not letting toxic individuals distract me from that is so freeing and refreshing. I still have an uphill battle to climb, but I’m not relying on my own strength to get me through this. Thanks so much Gary.”

I don’t normally post entire chapters, but seeing how just this one chapter impacted a man’s life, I thought this week we’d go ahead and give away the entire chapter, as it has several examples of what it means, as a believer, to “walk away” from toxic people at work.

10

A Man with a Mission

If only Satan were lazy.

He’s got just about every other evil cornered, excelling at the worst of the worst. It would be so convenient if he also tended toward sloth, but alas, he does not.

Not even close.

Nor do his followers, apparently.

To be given a mission from God is to be surrounded by many aggressive opponents and hyper-active enemies. Their attacks are clever, creative, and varied. Toxic people use blatant aggression and passive aggression. They pretend to be our friends and then, when that doesn’t work, threaten us as enemies. They act like they want to protect us and then try to control us. They hit from the left and when that is blocked they will come at us from the right.

Keep in mind, merely distracting you is a win for them. If they can’t ultimately defeat your work, they at least want to delay your work. 

Our job, based on Matthew 6:33 and 2 Timothy 2:2, requires us to maintain a laser sharp focus with wisdom, discernment and determination.

One of the all-time best conquerors of a pervasive toxic attack is Nehemiah, who in the fifth century B.C. felt called by God to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah’s deft and brilliant handling of the toxic people who opposed him lays out a wise, spiritually sensitive pattern for how to deal with malicious adversaries.

The Call

In case you don’t know the backstory: Jehoiakim, King of Judah rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon in 586 B.C. with disastrous results. Babylon’s army destroyed Jerusalem and burned its famous temple to ashes. Not quite fifty years later, Cyrus of Persia defeated the Babylonians and gained control of what had been Jerusalem. He gave the Jewish people permission to return to the city site in 536, and a newer, smaller version of the temple was rebuilt and dedicated in 516.  

Rebuilding an “economy version” of the temple was a small, largely religious gesture and didn’t create much friction or attention from the surrounding people. Jerusalem was still sparsely populated, a tiny outpost at best. Ezra sought to change this and led 1500 men and their families to re-settle and essentially re-populate Jerusalem in 455 B.C.

About a year later, Nehemiah, cup-bearer to King Artaxerxes, sought for and received permission to leave the king’s presence and rebuild Jerusalem’s wall. Though rebuilding the temple hadn’t stirred up any enemies, Nehemiah’s determination to rebuild Jerusalem’s wall unleashed vicious and murderous toxic attacks.

The natural question to ask is “why?” Why was rebuilding the wall (as opposed to the temple, which had been completed sixty years prior) so significant?

The temple had religious significance, which wasn’t a particular threat to the Persians, but a wall around Jerusalem had political significance. It was a civic statement as much as it was a religious one. That’s why it required the permission of the ruling king, which Nehemiah received from Artaxerxes.

One of the lessons from this is that civic leaders, doing civic work, are “seeking first the kingdom of God” every bit as much as religious workers. If God is behind your effort, and God is your motivating influence, and God is the one you’re seeking to please, you are indeed seeking first his kingdom even if it’s not church related. Civic change can actually be more threatening to some toxic opponents than religious reformation. As long as you “keep it within the walls of the church” they’re fine. Act like God wants to influence society? You better stay alert.

Stop!

As will be the case with many true works of God, toxic individuals rose up with a feverish passion to stop Nehemiah, asking him for a “meeting.”  

Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.”[i]

            Toxic people may sound reasonable. How could Nehemiah refuse a meeting? After all, aren’t God’s followers called to reach out to others? What could be wrong about getting together for a chat?

Mission minded people don’t have time for sentimental foolishness. Nehemiah saw though the façade to these men’s real intentions and refused the meeting. Here’s why:

But they were scheming to harm me; so I sent messengers to them with this reply: “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer.[ii]

Nehemiah recognizes this entreaty as a distracting toxic attack, not a good-faith effort. He lives in the truth and applies discernment. A senseless meeting isn’t worthy of his time. Rather than wasting effort getting into a silly spat, he puts it in utilitarian terms, essentially saying, “I’m too busy to be distracted by you.”

The toxic enemies are persistent. They live to wreak havoc. Instead of finding purpose and focus by seeking the Kingdom on their own, they spend their time attacking others who are building the Kingdom. They rarely take “no” for an answer, as we see here. They follow up with three additional appeals, trying to wear Nehemiah down.

This is a warning worth heeding. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m personally particularly weak when this happens to me. I can tell somebody “no” once, sometimes with a lame excuse, and when I’m at my best perhaps I’ll say “no” twice, but I usually buckle the third or fourth time, out of false guilt and a prideful people-pleasing attitude.

Not Nehemiah!

He stays true to his work and call. Sanballat responds to Nehemiah’s final refusal by resorting to threats:

Then, the fifth time [how annoying!], Sanballat sent his aide to me with the same message, and in his hand was an unsealed letter in which was written: “It is reported among the nations—and Geshem says it is true—that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and therefore you are building the wall. Moreover, according to these reports you are about to become their king and have even appointed prophets to make this proclamation about you in Jerusalem: ‘There is a king in Judah!’ Now this report will get back to the king; so come, let us meet together.”

      First, the request was for a “reasonable” meeting. Then it escalated into a threat—and we have a witness! “If you don’t do what we want you to do, the wrong people are going to hear about this—and you’ll surely pay.”

As if Nehemiah was doing something wrong.

When a toxic person doesn’t get his or her way, their next gambit is often to make your motives sound sinister. They will lie to others about why you won’t meet. They will insist you stop what you’re doing and interact with them or else pay the price. They will seek to enlist others to pressure you. Toxic people often excel at recruiting others in their distracting wars when they can’t distract you one-on-one.

Why do they care? You’re their mission! You’re seeking first God’s kingdom, they’re seeking first to distract you. I know, it doesn’t make much sense. But you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to make sense out of toxic attacks. They don’t make sense. They are petty and small-minded. If everyone devoted themselves to seeking first God’s kingdom, we wouldn’t have the motivation or time to devote ourselves to toxic attacks against others.

“Alecia” experienced this “distracting dynamic” in a relationship with a co-worker. The co-worker deluged Alecia with pleas for personal help regarding issues outside the office. As a believer, Alecia did all she could to help, but soon realized that things were getting out of hand. She wasn’t able to help Jennifer, and Jennifer’s entreaties were getting in the way of Alecia’s own work. As Alecia tried to pull back, Jennifer charged forward, sending Alecia “six page single-spaced” emails and “eleven minute” phone messages. If they weren’t answered immediately, there’d be a sob story about how hurt Jennifer was that Alecia wasn’t there for her when Jennifer needed her.

Soon, Alecia was worn out and couldn’t get her work done. She spent as much time trying to avoid Jennifer as she did focusing on her own responsibilities.

Here’s a warning: we Christians often feel guilty for getting “worn out” with someone, assuming we’re just being selfish, but getting worn out handling toxicity makes us weaker and more distracted in our call to fulfill God’s mission for our lives.

Alecia finally did what healthy people do—she established some boundaries.

“Jennifer,” she said, “we’re not going to have personal conversations any more. Let’s keep our communication on a professional basis.”

Any healthy person would see this as a reasonable request in the workplace and comply.

Not Jennifer.

A few days later, other co-workers started approaching Alecia with “concerned” inquiries about how she could be so unfair to Jennifer.

“Jennifer was so hurt, Alecia. She feels like you’ve abandoned her and she doesn’t know what she’s done wrong. And you won’t talk to her about it.”

Alecia was beside herself and wanted a pastor’s advice.

“Alecia,” I asked, “how do they know you don’t want to have long personal conversations with Jennifer? Did you tell them?”

“No.”

“Did they overhear you talking to her?”

“No.”

“So the only way they know is that Jennifer gossiped to them.”

Most people get that gossip is toxic. My use of that word was deliberate, as it appeared to me that Jennifer was being clever and sly. In fact, she did know what she had done wrong. Alecia had been clear and professional. Jennifer just didn’t like Alecia’s conclusion and like toxic people do, tried to make everything sound unclear and muddled as she gossiped about Alecia behind her back.

Alecia needed to understand that Jennifer was still being toxic. She aimed to control Alecia’s time and attention. It was a clever attack—enlist others to make Alecia feel like she’s not acting like a believer—but it was still an attack, and Alecia needed to treat it accordingly.

“Just say, ‘listen, it’s obvious Jennifer has talked to you about this because I haven’t. Who’s acting like the Christian here? Does the Bible tell us to go behind someone’s back when we don’t get our way? And why are you listening to gossip?”

I then urged her to rely on her reputation in the face of this recent attack. “Ask them, ‘Do I seem malicious in any other relationship? Have you found me to be uncaring?’”

Here’s the blatant trap you need to be wary of: Some people will want to waste your time and drain you by using a false sense of neediness. When that stops working, they don’t give up. If they can’t make you sympathize, they will seek to make you defensive. They’ll attack so you’ll want to defend yourself. What’s going on is that they just want your attention. They want to keep controlling a slice of your time, effort and energy. Whether you sympathize with them or are angry with them doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you notice them and spend time interacting with them.

As we saw earlier, it’s really all about control. Again, it doesn’t always make sense. It seems ridiculous that someone else would make it their mission to distract you from your mission, but that’s what toxic people do.

I didn’t understand this earlier in my ministry. I wanted to help everyone. When I realized I was in over my head on certain occasions and tried to pull back (I’m not a trained counselor or professional theologian and have many limitations on my intellect and understanding), the toxic people figured out, “I can still have a relationship with him if I attack him, because he’ll respond to that.”

It’s a sick and disturbing relationship, but to them, it’s still a relationship and as a toxic person, they kind of enjoy it.

Don’t fall for this trap. Keep your eyes opened to the warped and twisted attack Sanballat was waging against Nehemiah. No reasonable person would believe that Nehemiah was doing what he was doing to proclaim himself king. Toxic people lack real mission so they create false missions.

Nehemiah was motivated by love, faith and obedience. Toxic people are motivated by selfishness, hatred and conflict. You can’t win when you’re interacting with them because you’re both playing entirely different games. The rules aren’t even the same. So do what Nehemiah did:

I sent him this reply: “Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.”

They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.”

But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.”

When people distract you from your mission to God, find refuge in God: “strengthen my hands.” Instead of talking to them or wasting your time with them, double down on prayer. Get God’s heart, courage, comfort, and affirmation. Why waste time trying to placate a toxic person (as if you could stop their hatred anyway) when you could spend time receiving love and instruction from the God of the universe?

One of the best defenses against toxic attacks, then, is seeking what John Climacus called true meekness, “a permanent condition of that soul which remains unaffected by whether or not it is spoken well of, whether or not it is honored or praised.”[iii] As we’ll see at the end of this chapter, the goal is a soul oriented around God’s approval, entirely free from either toxic assaults or empty flattery. We have one boss—our heavenly father—and our focus should be on pleasing him, wanting to hear him say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

Why Can’t We Be Friends?

Pleas didn’t work with Nehemiah. Threats didn’t work either. So next his enemies pretended to be friends who wanted to “protect” him from others:

One day I went to the house of Shemaiah…who was shut in at his home. He said, “Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you—by night they are coming to kill you” (6:10).

“Shemaiah” is a religious name, most often given to Levites, prophets and priests. The context here suggests that this Shemaiah is a prophet. Tobiah and Sanballat went for “religious cover” to detract Nehemiah from his God given calling. They had warned him of political ramifications (“we’re going to tell the king”); Nehemiah didn’t fall for it, so now they’re bringing in the religious argument: “Surely you’d listen to a prophet…”

In order to “protect” himself, however, Nehemiah would have to do what? He’d have to suspend his mission! There’s no way this man of God was going to be fooled by that.

But I said, “Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!” I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me (6:11-13).

Nehemiah knows he’s dealing with clever toxic people, but he doesn’t become obsessed with them. That would be yet another trap. Instead, he simply commits them to God. No slander, no gossip, no malice. Just prayer:

Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, my God, because of what they have done; remember also the prophet Noadiah and how she and the rest of the prophets have been trying to intimidate me (6:14).

Sadly, “church” people can be just as toxic as non-church people, as demonstrated here by Shemaiah and Noadiah. Nehemiah wisely recognizes that it’s not his job to launch a campaign against them or get them unseated. That, too, would be a distraction. Best just to pray for them and let God take it from here. After all, they’re supposed to represent God in the first place.

Finished

The end result of Nehemiah’s focus, determination, and adept handling of toxic opposition is a stunning and stupendous victory.

 So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days (6:15).

It’s really quite extraordinary that Nehemiah and his workers were able to finish the wall around Jerusalem in just fifty-two days. It begs the question, why wasn’t the wall built decades sooner if it could be done in less than two months?

The answer is simple: prior to Nehemiah, no wise, discerning, mission-minded person was willing to push past the toxic people who were adamant that the wall not be built. Mission minded people can accomplish a whole lot in a shockingly short amount of time when they stay focused and don’t allow toxic people to distract them.

The best way to confound toxic people is to ignore them while you complete the work they want to stop. Serve God faithfully and zealously, and let them commiserate with the devil when their own plans fail. 

The Real Witness

Now, notice something spiritually spectacular. By not being distracted by the toxic people’s pleas, by avoiding their threats, by not being drawn into false entreaties of friendship, Nehemiah served the toxic people more in resisting them than he would have by giving in to them.

How so?

Nothing puts toxic people back on their heels like watching a godly servant stay true to their calling and accomplish God’s work. It’s inspiring:

When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God (6:16).

The best thing you can do to “witness” to a toxic person is stay focused on your task, refuse to be distracted or play their games, pray instead of gossip, and then get the work done. Find the reliable people God has called you to invest in. Accomplish that task that you know to be urgent. Then they will see that God is God, and they are not. That’s the message they most need to hear. That’s the best way for you to “witness” to them. If toxicity “works” for them, they’ll never leave their toxic strategies behind. The best thing you can do for a toxic person who unjustly opposes you is to make sure they fail in distracting you from your God-given mission. “Testify” to them with God-empowered and God-breathed success.

Here’s how warped toxic opposition is: when a toxic person directs you and distracts you, they are seeking to become your god with a little “g” (once again, it’s about control). They want you to be directed and motivated by them! “I will plead with your good nature; if that doesn’t work I will threaten you; if that doesn’t work, I will pretend I’m your friend and try to trick you; I will enlist others, civic and religious authorities, to back me up; but I am determined that you will eventually do what I want you to do!”

A servant of God says in response, “I serve the one true God, not you. I do his will, not yours. I am driven by his mission, not your attacks. You are not my god and I will neither serve nor pay attention to you.”

This is a lesson toxic people need to learn.

One More Try

One final lesson from Nehemiah: toxic people often refuse to admit defeat. Such was the case with Nehemiah’s enemies. Later on in his book we read, “Tobiah sent letters to intimidate me” (6:19).

Even after the wall was completed, Tobiah wouldn’t let it go, and that points out another potential trap: if toxic people can’t stop your mission, they will set out to distract you while you are maintaining your mission.

Your job is to continue to ignore the toxic people and find the reliable ones to invest in. Listen to what the wise Nehemiah did in light of this ongoing attack: “I put in charge of Jerusalem my brother Hanani, along with Hananiah the commander of the citadel, because he was a man of integrity and feared God more than most people do.”[1]

Nehemiah had found his “reliable people” qualified to teach others, and that’s who he focused on, and so should we. Why waste time arguing with a toxic person who only wants to distract you, when you can join forces with someone who “fears God more than most people do” and advance the work?

The End Result

Nehemiah’s faithfulness and skill in handling toxic people resulted in many people praising God. Ezra led a worship service of all Jerusalem’s citizens, now meeting behind a secure wall. Here’s how Nehemiah describes it:

“Ezra praised the Lord, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, “Amen! Amen!” Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.”[2]

Instead of trying to make toxic people happy or satisfied (which is a waste as they can’t and won’t be mollified), live to help reliable people serve and worship God. Our joy is to open up new avenues of worship with people who want to reverence God. Rather than living to make toxic people feel good about us, let’s live to make reliable people excited about God.

The book of Nehemiah ends beautifully, even poetically, with a verse that has changed my life focus. After coming to a clear understanding of a problem (Jerusalem exposed, without a wall), accepting the mission to secure it, learning how not to be distracted or defeated by toxic opponents, investing in reliable men to carry on the work, and leading an entire nation into a new season of worship, Nehemiah reveals his heart’s true desire:

“Remember me with favor, my God.”[3]

We will be most helpful to God when we care exclusively about how God remembers us, and learn not to care about how toxic people view us or talk about us. We have one God—the Creator God—and it is idolatrous to let little “gods” direct us, dissuade us, or even distract us.

When Focus on the Family broadcasts one of my interviews, it’s a happy couple of days. Books on Amazon get a big boost, people remember you exist and often post nice things about what you said on Twitter or Facebook, and everybody is happy.

Well, not everybody.

There’s a woman who apparently believes her mission in life is to troll Facebook, find someone who says anything nice about me, and then set them straight about how awful I am, how destructive my books are, and how no one should ever listen to anything I say.

In my weaker moments I have responded, wanting to explain things to the original person who made the post, helping them understand what’s really going on. But then the detractor responds again and it gets messy.

I finally signed off by writing to the woman in question, “I’m not going to argue with you. Anyone can see the way you’ve treated me and how I have never responded in kind, and let God be the judge between both of us.” In this case, I clearly sensed God telling me to spend my time and energy writing one helpful sentence for a blog or book (investing in reliable people) rather than waste even ten more seconds trying to counter her attacks. She feeds off conflict. It’s what makes her come alive. And I’m not helping anyone by enabling that.

Most of the time, I listen to God and move on, but I’m weak enough that sometimes I give in and engage again (if you notice me doing that in the future, feel free to refer me back to this chapter).

Nehemiah 13:31 has become my new go-to Scripture for these tempting seasons: “Remember me with favor, my God.”

That’s all that matters. Not what she thinks about me. Not what others on social media think about me. We should all live to be remembered with favor by God. Live to hear your Creator, Lord and Savior say “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

Let’s learn to focus, fulfill our mission, resist the distractions, and live to be remembered with favor by the one true God.

And that means saying “no” to the toxic distractors.

[1] The New International Version. (2011). (Ne 7:2). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[2] The New International Version. (2011). (Ne 8:6). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[3] The New International Version. (2011). (Ne 13:31). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[i] Nehemiah 6:1-2.

[ii] Nehemiah 6:2-4.

[iii] Climacus, pg. 146.

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