Who are the difficult people in your life? Family, friends, people at church, classmates, coworkers? What do you know about the difficult people in your life? Do you sometimes wish someone else could deal with them? Are they often a disturbance to your life? Do you feel like they are only being difficult because they are seeking attention?
Life is full of difficult people, and we can either learn how to love them or we can ignore them, distance ourselves from them, and pretend they don’t exist. Did Jesus ever have to deal with difficult people? Yes, of course. How did He do it? He took the time to love them right where they were at.
God shows us love because He knows it’s the number one thing we need. Let’s start at the beginning. Before God chastised, rebuked, judged, and withheld, He made Adam, provided all his needs, and then made him a helper and human companion, Eve.
Later, God sent to us His Son, Jesus to make a way for us because He loves us that much. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” And His Son extended love on this earth while here with us.
Difficult people just need to be loved. It’s as simple as that. And the reason is because that’s how God made us. He made us to be relational people. We desire to be loved and cared for. And we desire to give that love to others. Hollywood shows us an unhealthy way to do this. But the Bible shows us that love in and of itself is defined and wrapped up in God. It is God Himself who is love (1 John 4:8).
Love began with God and He shows us why love is so important to Him. Love is one way we can show the world that we belong to Christ. When we love others, we point them and the world back to God.
John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.”
John 17:23, “I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.”
John 17:26, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
God was patient with us and is still, through our immaturity, pride, and insecurities. If He was patient with us, why would we think we are exempt from being patient with others?
Luke 6:40, “A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.”
And why would we be so bold to think we weren’t “that way” or “difficult” to Christ? None of us have arrived at complete perfection. You put on an attitude of love toward others and regard for them because they were made in God’s image just like you. We are God’s creation just as that “hard-to-love” person is. God loves us the same as those who seem more “difficult”. God extended grace to us in our mess; He does the same for those who are hard for us to love.
So why should we love those who are hard to love? Because we are called to love them.
John 15:12, “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.”
When I think of the “hard-to-love” people in my life, I often consider what the Lord may be trying to teach me through them or through my relationship with them. If “all things work together for your good”, then one way to look at the situation is to consider what the Lord could be trying to show you – whether about this person or about you and your own heart?
Something that always intrigued my mind was trying to figure out why these difficult people were hard to love? What’s their story? What has happened in their life that has hardened their heart and mind toward others and the world? Or what do they struggle with, or are afflicted with, that affect how they live in this world?
Hurting and broken people will often do and say unloving things. Instead of getting offended, we should respond with compassion and understanding. That doesn’t mean we subject ourselves repeatedly to unhealthy interactions, or that we can’t have healthy boundaries. Don’t mistake “love” for “enabling”. You shouldn’t allow someone to abuse you or put you in harm’s way. But what it does mean is that we don’t allow their hurt to dominate our thoughts and take our focus off Christ and His call for us to “love one another.”
We can love from a distance, kind of like the father did for the prodigal son in Luke 15. We might consider the wayward son “difficult” and “hard-to-love”, yet the father didn’t chase after the son or send communication over and over to the son. We can love others by praying for them and asking God to intervene in their life and do a radical change in their heart. The father didn’t run after the son, but he regarded him with love in his heart…until the day he returned home. And then it was made manifest for all to see and us to read.
But generally speaking, on the surface, when we find others “hard-to-love”, what is usually the issue we have with them? Sometimes it’s just because they’re not like us. Friction arises because they aren’t the “way” we think they should be. They do things differently than we do and they respond in a way we wouldn’t respond.
The Bible is full of examples of interactions with “hard-to-love” people. Thomas was one of the twelve disciples. He doubted the other disciples when they brought news of the Lord’s resurrection (John 20:25). He wanted proof for himself. The Bible doesn’t say the other disciples ridiculed him or threw him out. They loved patiently, waiting for him to “see” what they knew to be true.
The book of Exodus shows us Moses experienced difficult people. The grumbling, ungrateful Israelites were hard to love, yet Moses loved them and cared about their spiritual life because he loved God and wanted to be faithful to lead the people God had placed him over.
Ruth had a sad and depressed mother-in-law, Naomi. But instead of abandoning Naomi or “writing her off” as a bitter woman, Ruth got close to Naomi and personal with her and told her she would stay with her, “wherever you go, I will go.” She loved Naomi when it may have been difficult to do so. She was patient with Naomi’s emotional state and extended unconditional love and compassion.
Joseph is yet another example, although he is one who we might say had every reason not to love his brothers. They threw him in a deep pit, sold him off as a slave, and told their father he was dead. But when we read of his encounter with his brothers many years later, he was filled with love and compassion for them (Genesis 45).
Our best example at loving difficult people is Jesus. He loved the hard-to-love and we can learn from Him. He loved Peter, the one who denied him (Luke 22:54-62), and told him in Matthew 16:18, “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it.”
Jesus also loved the woman at the well (John 4) enough to point her to salvation in Him alone, the Living Water and wellspring of life eternal. She was a lost sinner, yet He displayed kindness and compassion toward her. He set the example for us, to love the lost and share the Gospel with them.
There are many other examples of Jesus loving difficult people in the Bible, but what do each of these accounts show us? It shows us that loving “hard-to-love” people takes humility, patience, perseverance, forbearance (self control; restraint), kindness and compassion, unconditional love, forgiveness (Col. 3:13), and prayer.
Ephesians 4:1-2, “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,”
Philippians 2:1-4 also explains these characteristics well and reminds us in verse 5, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.” And this helps us understand why these things are requested and required of us. Because God exampled them first and we are to follow Him.
John 13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
We are loved by God, so we need to live like it and share that love with others.
Ephesians 5:1-2, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.”
1 John 2:6, “Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.”
John 14:15, “If you love me, obey my commandments.”
When we feel it’s too much work, and when we don’t feel like loving others, that’s the time when it’s needed most. Be obedient. Set your selfishness aside. And watch the Lord show you some things you would have missed otherwise.