Altered Acquaintance(Part 2): What the Holy Spirit Saved Me From

In the last journal, I started a story about an acquaintance. If you haven't read that one, you should. This journal is a continuation of that experience.​

After he responded, and Facebook had confirmed what I already suspected, I revisited the conversation about him being too touchy. I stressed that as a married man who was very far from his wife, he needed to have boundaries — so that the devil could not use something like his overly physical nature as an opportunity to make him sin against God. He said his wife was aware that he was a touchy person.​

At that point, I felt it was a lost cause to advise him any further. So I simply told him that if he wanted to convince me to become his business partner, he should inform his wife, have her call me directly, and based on that conversation and my own evaluation, I would decide whether it was something I should pursue. I would let him know.​

By this time it was already around 7:45pm. I told him we needed to get going so I could take him back to the train station. He said it was still too early to leave. I insisted. It almost seemed as though he was hoping to spend the night at my place — but I held firm and made sure he got onto the 8pm train back to his city.​

From that day on, I deliberately reduced the time I spent with him on calls and became more measured in how I responded to his messages, until that connection faded away gradually.​

A few months later, I received a message from him saying he really needed to speak with me. It seemed urgent — as though something had gone seriously wrong — so I agreed, and we had a call.​

What he recounted stopped me in my tracks.​

He had been cheating on his wife for several months. In fact, it had gone this far — he had travelled home to visit his family, got his wife pregnant with their fourth son, returned to Germany, and started a relationship with another woman. According to him, he had already told this woman that he was married and would not take any other wife, and they continued regardless. When his wife had the baby close to the Christmas holiday period, instead of going home to be with her and the new baby, he chose to stay back and spend the holiday with the other woman.​

Now, that woman had broken up with him. And he had called me — to pour out his frustration about what she had done to him, and how badly he felt about it, given the sacrifices he had made for her in terms of money and even choosing to spend the holidays with her instead of his family.​

I was speechless. I honestly cannot remember what I said to him. What I do know is that I blocked him after that conversation, just so that he doesn't contact me during that period to talk about what he had done, and I unblocked him some time later, because I sensed I should.​

After that call, I was just so grateful to God — and to the gift of the Holy Spirit — for prompting me to ask questions and for not allowing me to become emotionally available to him. Because he was relentless with the calls, the messages, and the late-night conversations. I remember wondering what time he actually spent communicating with his wife, if he could dedicate that much time to speaking with me.​

When I found out he was married, I honestly felt a sense of guilt — as though I had, without knowing it, allowed myself to rob his wife of time that could have been hers. I had to take that to God and ask for forgiveness.​

Just as I had to alter that experience, we not only need to alter ourselves as we walk with Christ — we also need to alter our acquaintances. We need to define what kind of relationship we actually have with the people who are not quite friends, but are simply there. Through constant communication with God, we can have all our relationships properly defined, and alter the ones that are not sitting in the right place.​

The reason this matters is simple — we tend to be careful with friends, but relaxed with acquaintances, because we assume it will never go that deep. But sometimes it can go deeper than you realise, before you even notice it happening.​

If I had paused and prayed after the lady I grew up with first told me about this man, I may have received clearer instruction from God on how to proceed. Instead, I based my decision to connect with him on the assumption that someone she knew would naturally be responsible — not on whether this was actually God's will. Our decisions should always be grounded in God's will. And when we find ourselves already in a situation, we can trust the Holy Spirit to help us alter that relationship, and redirect it to the glory of God.​

I hope this was a blessing to you.​

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