Surviving Friendly Fire: How to Respond When You've Been Hurt by Someone You Trust

By Ron Dunn

Have you, like Jesus, been "wounded in the house of a friend" (Zechariah 1:3-6)? Ron Dunn has found the secrets to dealing with friendly fire." He shows us how to forgive our attackers and "get even" God's way. This updated edition includes testimonies of victory over anger, bitterness and resentment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CLC Publications
• Release date: Sep 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781619583627

Book preview

Opening Words from

Kaye Dunn Robinson

READING THROUGH Ron’s journals the other day, I realized I had seen several entries where he would note what a wonderful week of preaching he had enjoyed while traveling but looming in his mind was coming home to difficult circumstances relating to the children and their bipolar issues, which had escalated with time. He had been wounded by the seemingly daily chaos brought about by this painful mental disorder and chemical imbalance.

He adored the children God had gifted us with. We looked like the perfect family for about fifteen years, until life started unraveling because of the toll this disorder was taking on all three children. It was overwhelming at times. Ronnie’s suicide and the difficult years leading up to it were taking a toll on Ron’s health . . . wounds from those he loved so.

After Ronnie’s death, we never dreamed we would go through the same hell with Stephen and Kimberly. Stephen actually made it through seminary and was on his way to getting his doctorate in biblical archeology. We were unaware for quite some time of his crumbling life and marriage until it all came crashing down, and we were left to pick up the pieces. From those days till Ron’s death, it was a wound that ached twenty-four hours a day, with Stephen’s threats of suicide off and on along the way.

When we recognized that our sweet Kimberly carried the same gene and was dealing with bipolar illness (along with so many side issues), it was almost too heavy a blow. Kimberly’s problems culminated with her committing herself to a mental hospital to try to find a solution. When Ron wasn’t in the pulpit preaching, there were always complicated issues to deal with which kept both of us on our knees.

Shortly after being put on medication for her bipolar illness, Kimberly had a car wreck leaving her with a crushed left leg and ankle. After several surgeries to try to save that leg, it was ultimately amputated and she battled MRSA, staph and cellulitis infections while in the hospital which plagued her the rest of her life. At the time of Ron’s death, she was in a nursing home, trying to heal, and this was crushing the very life out of him.

In 2001, the year this book went into print, Ron went to heaven, so thrilled to be with Ronnie, Jr. once again. Stephen joined them in April, 2015, and Kimberly made the group complete in December, 2017.

Today they are rejoicing together in the glories of heaven, all with healthy bodies and healthy minds, and loving Jesus their Lord. When I think of this, I can’t help but smile, picturing Kimberly dancing all over heaven with two perfect legs.

Preface to the

Updated Edition

FEW PEOPLE HAVE impacted my life and ministry more than Ron Dunn. I first heard of Ron in the mid1970s and began to listen to his tapes. His preaching stirred a fire in me to go deeper, think longer, and be true to the Scriptures.

He and I had a mutual friend in Vance Havner. When Vance died in the mid-’80s, Ron stepped into my life as a mentor and friend. He preached a total of nineteen Bible conferences for me before his death in 2001, and there isn’t a day when I don’t miss him.

Ron was a preacher’s preacher. He knew how to get inside a text and bring life to black print on white paper. He also knew more than his share of hurt, pain, and suffering. Ron’s preaching always ministered to hurting people. While Ron dealt with these topics, he didn’t wear his own hurt on his sleeve. He was human, in the greatest sense of the word. When you listened to Ron preach, you felt like he’d been reading your mail.

One year when Ron was preaching for us at Sherwood, he asked me to help him do some research on what would become the book you hold in your hands. While some might read this book and think Ron was speaking theoretically, he was preaching from a painful, personal experience. This experience hurt him and wounded him. In some ways, it came out of nowhere. It was unfair, and people that should have stood with him bailed or were cowards when he needed someone to stand up and speak up.

If you live long enough, you’re going to be wounded. It’s not the wounds of enemies that sting as much as the wounds that come from people we trust—family members, church members, those who have been on the journey with us. I’ve experienced that on multiple levels, as have many of you.

In many ways, Ron wrote a book that all of us could add a chapter to. For some reading this book, it will be a divorce, a prodigal child, a parent who walked away, or a relative who abuses you. Whatever your situation, you’ll find your story in this story.

You’ll also find there are no pat answers, no name-it claim-it promises. Rather, it’s a simple abandonment to being honest, to claiming God’s Word, and to standing when it seems everyone is trying to knock you down. You will be able to identify with the truths revealed, and we pray that God uses this book to remind you to stay in the battle. Don’t quit.

This book has been updated and expanded. Kaye Dunn Robinson, Ron’s widow, asked me to tackle this project. We both wanted to see this book back in print and available to a new generation of preachers and believers. I have taken this seriously. I certainly don’t feel worthy to update one of Ron’s books.

We’ve sought to gather more stories from preachers who knew Ron or knew of Ron’s ministry. They tell their stories of being wounded by friendly fire in the pages of this book (a story is shared at the end of chapters 2–15). We’ve left the names out for obvious reasons. The stories are a valuable addition to the truths in these pages.

In addition, we’ve added a short study guide in the back for small groups, pastors, accountability groups, and counseling centers to use.

We have seen God use this book in countless lives. We believe there will be great encouragement for many who will gather in small settings to honestly share and seek help from the Lord.

May God use the words of Ron and the stories of others to encourage you. May you find healing from your wounds. Don’t let the Enemy make you bitter and angry. Allow the Holy Spirit to strengthen you and speak to your heart.

Michael Catt

Sherwood Church | Albany, Georgia

Acknowledgments

From Ron Dunn:

I’d like to acknowledge several people:

Tony Preston, whose mention of the hand of Saul sowed the seeds of this book.

My dear friend Michael Catt for much-appreciated material, advice, and support.

Joanne Gardner, my associate and friend for more than thirty years, who never seems to tire of ABC work (above and beyond the call of duty).

The many wounded who shared with me their stories. Thanks. Although some stories don’t appear in the book, each one contributed to my belief that it needed to be written.

Stephen and Kimberly, my son and daughter, for their always expected, never disappointing support and encouragement.

And as always, my wife, Kaye, who listens with grace to me ramble, complain, and swear never to write another book. She is my most valuable critic. Even her criticism is encouraging.

From Michael Catt:

Thank you to Stephanie Bennett, who tirelessly retyped the pages of this book as we didn’t have any original manuscripts.

Thanks to the men and women who shared their stories.

Thanks to Kaye for entrusting us with this project. Thanks to her husband Dan for prayerfully supporting this effort and for his love and respect for Ron’s ministry.

Thanks to CLC for believing this book needed to be back in print.

Thanks to Leigh Cox for writing the study guide. It is her desire that this guide would accomplish Ron’s hope to help you recover from any wounds and heal the painful memories (p. 20) by making it easier to apply the biblical principles found within these pages. May you remember and apply these principles long after the study is complete.

Thanks to the people of Sherwood Church who have provided the space for Ron Dunn’s personal library, for naming the conference center the Ron Dunn Center for Biblical Studies, for hosting the website www.rondunn.com, and for overseeing the Ron Dunn podcast on iTunes, as well as the Ron Dunn Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Introduction

It had never happened before in U.S. military history. But it was happening to Captain Jim Wang. He was being court-martialed for twenty-six friendly fire deaths.

Time magazine recorded the incident.

As the two helicopters sliced through the blue skies over northern Iraq last Thursday, a U.S. Air Force AWACS reconnaissance plane picked them up on radar. The AWACS crew immediately radioed a pair of U.S. F-15C fighters and asked them to take a closer look. Though there had been no reported violations of the no-fly zone over northern Iraq since January 1993, Iraqi helicopters had been a problem in the past, when Saddam Hussein used them to suppress the Kurdish rebellion that erupted after the Gulf War ended in 1991. The crews of the F-15Cs twice flew past the copters and identified them as Russian-made Hinds flown by the Iraqi military. The fateful, terse order came back from the AWACS to fire. Moments later, the blasted helicopters, each of them struck by an air-to-air missile, plummeted to the ground.

As horrified Pentagon officials quickly discovered, however, the two choppers were not Hinds but U.S. Black Hawks. On board were 26 allied military and civilian officials. . . . The accident virtually wiped out the leadership of the allied Military Coordination Center.

The magazine went on to say,

. . . lives lost to friendly fire are a devastating cost of battle. Almost one-fourth of the 148 American combat deaths in the Gulf War resulted from accidental assault by their own side. The Pentagon established a Fratricide Task Force to develop ways to avoid such accidents.¹

Of the six Air Force officers investigated, only Captain Wang was court-martialed. He was acquitted of all charges on June 20, 1995.

Friendly fire has always been a feared reality in combat. One official stated that if the truth were known, the number of friendly fire incidents would probably be ten times more than the usual two-percent estimate.

Never having lost a loved one in combat, I can only imagine the heart-rending grief such a death would inflict. But to learn that your loved one was killed by one of his own would, it seems to me, magnify the pain, now joined by rage, a thousand times over.

But the tragedy of friendly fire is not confined to military combat zones. Whatever we choose to call it, all of us have been wounded by friendly fire. As Lewis Smedes says,

If you live long enough, chances are you’ll be hurt by someone you counted on to be your friend. . . . When we invest ourselves in deep personal relationships, we open our souls to the wounds of another’s disloyalty or even betrayal.²

I have preached in hundreds and hundreds of churches—big and little, city and rural, of this denomination or that—and I have found churches full of wounded and hurting people. It may have been yesterday or a lifetime ago, but it still ulcerates the heart and mind. And what makes this so depressingly tragic is that these wounds have come not from enemies, but from friends. We expect our enemies to hurt us, but when the hurt comes from a friend or a loved one or a trusted one, a pastor or parishioner, a husband or wife, a parent or child, who can measure how deeply that wound buries itself in the soul?

During a conference, a woman shared with me a disturbing problem in her life. I suggested she talk to her pastor about the matter.

She huffed and said, The last time I told him anything, I ended up as next Sunday’s sermon illustration.

Increasing numbers of people tell me that they are reluctant or even refused to share their hurts with their church friends or church leaders. Philip Yancey reminds us that when Jesus was on earth, troubled people ran to Him to find refuge; now they seem to be running from Him or, rather, from His church. Yancey concludes with a blunt and poignant question: What has happened?³

Perhaps you have been wounded by friendly fire, hurt by a friend, betrayed by someone you trusted, let down by someone you depended upon. Maybe the wound was so deep that you have decided to build walls around yourself to ensure that it never happens again. You may feel like a friend of mine who, after a messy divorce, said, I’ll never love anyone again. It hurts too much. After all, if you don’t love anyone or trust anybody, how can you be hurt again?

You may have abandoned the church altogether because of the undeserved hurts you received there. But something is missing from your life. The anger is a poor substitute for the peace you once felt; the loneliness of spirit is too high a price to pay for the fellowship of the saints. Perhaps you feel like David when he said out of deep depression,

These things I remember

as I pour out my soul:

how I used to go with the multitude,

leading the procession to the house of God,

with shouts of joy and thanksgiving

among the festive throng.

(Ps. 42:4)

The prodigal son’s memory of how great things were in his father’s house prompted his decision to return home. Do you remember?

I hope that what I say in this book will help you recover from any wounds and heal the painful memories. In Part 1, I deal with being wounded by friendly fire: what it is, what it looks like, and why people do it. Part 2 discusses some biblical ways of surviving friendly fire, and Part 3 is devoted to returning friendly fire—getting even God’s way.

Part 1 

Wounded by Friendly Fire

Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.

—Alexander Pope

We feel cheated by our newspapers and magazines if no one is leveled in the dust in them. We wait in ambush for the novel that fails, for the poet who commits suicide, for the financier who is a crook, for the politician who slips, for the priest who is discovered to be an adulterer. We live in ambush for them all so that we may gloat at their misfortunes.

—Henry Fairlie, British Journalist 21

1 

Friendly Fire

DURING A fellowship period after a service one night, two women sat down next to me. Tell him! one woman said to the other, who had pain engraved on her face. Shuddering like a child being force-fed broccoli, she began sobbing.

Haltingly, she told me her story. She and her family belonged to another church in town, a totalitarian church with a dictatorial pastor who taught that every minutia of the church members’ lives should be under the authority of the church (pastors and elders).

Her husband was gung-ho about this concept; he treated his wife as a slave and severely abused her. Finally, she could take it no longer and went to one of the elders for help.

Have you ever considered, he asked, that you might be mentally ill?

That evening, expecting some semblance of sympathy, she told her husband of her encounter with the elder. The husband looked at her and said, You might think seriously about that. Later that evening, she overheard her husband calling the elder to thank him for what he said to his wife.

I don’t believe in divorce, she told me in a defeated voice, so I’ve stayed with him. I’ve gained a hundred pounds.

That’s friendly fire.

I have a friend who started a street ministry in a large city in Texas. He was (and is) the kind of guy who wasn’t afraid to get down and get dirty with the helpless and hopeless teenage derelicts in the gutters of the pitiless city. Runaways, druggies, alcoholics, and gang members were his congregation. God blessed the ministry with many conversions to Christ. He incorporated the ministry and selected trusted friends as board members.

Then he met a man truly on the skids. Once a song leader for a then-famous evangelist, he had lost everything because of alcohol. My friend gave him a car, helped him buy a home, gave him thousands of dollars to get back on his feet, and hired him as a fund-raiser for the growing ministry.

My friend, a high-energy person and tireless worker, eventually pushed himself to the point of exhaustion and was hospitalized. While he was in the hospital, the man he helped never visited him; he was busy convincing the board members he could run the ministry better than my friend. Some board members resigned; others stayed on and, under the persuasion of this man, retired my friend. His ministry was stolen from him by a man he had befriended and trusted.

That’s friendly fire.

The Bible is full of instances of friendly fire: Cain slaying his brother, Abel; Jacob stealing the birthright from his brother, Esau; Joseph betrayed by his brothers; Peter forsaking Jesus; Paul abandoned by his brethren while he was in prison.

Why Friendly Fire?

In trying to understand how these Bible characters and contemporary Christians could lie, deceive, and betray their fellow believers, I came to a conclusion: Before this kind of malicious behavior can live in a person, something must first die in that person.

The Death of Integrity and Other Good Things

We read in Proverbs, The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity (11:3).

Everyone seems to be talking about integrity these days, specifically its loss. I think most people would agree that one of the greatest failures, especially among leaders, is the failure of integrity.

Stephen Carter, in his book Integrity, maintains that this is perhaps

. . . first among the virtues that make for a good character because that in some sense it is prior to everything else: the rest of what we think matters very little if we lack essential integrity, the courage of our convictions, the willingness to act and speak in behalf of what we know is right.¹

The French dramatist Jean Baptist Molière stated, "If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear