Oh, The Challenge:

We have all been in a situation where we have been challenged with someone in our lives who drives us nuts or is difficult to love.  There can be those people who say mean words to our faces or who do not have the decency to think about their actions and how it may impact us before they do them.  I know that I have encountered many people along the way who are not completely loveable, but it doesn’t necessarily make it easier any of the times that we come across them again.  It takes skill to face this particular challenge.  

I have a woman at my current job who has not been pleasant.  She is not a fan of mine.  Why is this?  I don’t know.  I don’t know what I ever did to upset her.  But I can say that she has a lot of negative comments to make towards me.  It has been hurtful, and I have been so annoyed and angry.  So far at least in these last few months, I have done a fairly good job at not retaliating, and I am happy this is the current story.  However, I have been so tempted to treat her the exact way she has treated me.  I have been so tempted to get angry back at her and say unkind things to her.  There was a time in the fall when I was very angry and snapped back at her, but I didn’t enjoy how I felt about myself later that day.  Since then, I have been cautious to not repeat that particular action.   

For my Bible Study group, we are reading the book, “Mere Christianity,” by C.S Lewis.  For our last session, we read the section on charity.  Lewis thought of charity in different ways than I ever have.  For one thing, he thought of charity, not just in the sense of giving to the poor but in what charity was supposed to be authentically.  Charity in its original definition was supposed to be thought of as “Love in the Christian sense.”  Love in the way that we are supposed to act and have towards one another and towards God himself.  

One line that stood out to me from that chapter was, “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor, act as if you did.”  Lewis will go on to explain that actually liking someone or not has no sin, but it is the actions and the choices that we make towards that person.  Also, he will mention that yes, spending time trying to like the person can make it easier to be loving to them because we are usually more loving to the people we like as a general rule.  However, we don’t actually have to like a person in order to be a Christian towards them or loving towards them.  

This is also a good reminder to focus our energy away from doing the opposite.  I have often mentioned that I have struggled with venting about people.  I always claim that this helps me feel better.  When in reality giving constant complaints about someone makes a person dislike that person even more than they did originally.   I am not saying that sometimes blowing off some steam isn’t a good thing or that sometimes we need to talk out our feelings with someone, but we should not focus as much of our energy discussing with others the things that we dislike about a lot of different people.  It doesn’t help us show God’s love, but it can rather make more apparent the ways it is hard to show God’s love to that particular individual. 

There have been a lot of studies and articles  shown to relate this claim.  Including an article by Kristalyn Salters who has a PhD who said, “However, more recent research suggests that venting anger in this way doesn’t dissipate it. Instead, venting anger may make these feelings worse.”  Again, I am not writing this from a place of having it all figured out.  I definitely struggle when it comes to desiring to vent out my feelings.  I believe it makes me feel better.  I believe that this is just me getting my anger out and that is the end.  When in reality, I become more content in my anger and annoyance of a person or situation.  

I have two tips I try to remember when dealing with challenging people.  The first is to remember that they may be dealing with a lot of stress or hardships, or even heartbreak that I have no knowledge of.  I recently found out that the co-worker who has been difficult with me is going to the doctor a lot for her skin cancer.  Her face has been poked and prodded, leaving dry, red spots.  That can not be pleasant to deal with, and it is most likely stressful to deal with the multiple doctor appointments.  Even though her stress does not warrant being mean to others, it does make a person understand why they have become more harsh or cross.    

Then the second one I try to remember is how I would like people to treat me even when I am being difficult.  I have had days.  I have had rough moments, and I have been a jerk sometimes.  I have been cross, and through it all, I have had friends and family members who have been there for me.  I have had friends who have just listened to me and loved me through those tough moments.  This is even why we have the Golden rule that is based in Scripture from Matthew 7:12, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”  Then I also need to remember that I have the extreme grace and love from the Father, who is constantly forgiving and loving me throughout my mistakes and my hard to love moments.  I need to remember how many times God has been gracious with me when I have not deserved it.  I can show a bit of that love to my neighbors and difficult people in my life.  

My challenge for you this week is to think of a person that can be sometimes very hard to love in your own life.  Sadly, it seems we all have at least one person who can make our days longer or our hours harder.  Who is the person who maybe doesn’t seem to vibe with you, maybe the person you don’t necessarily get along with the best?  It is alright to admit that sometimes you don’t like something about someone.  As the book, “Mere Christianity” says, that isn’t where the sinning comes in.  The sinning comes from us making poor choices towards those people or choosing not to show them love.  So, the second part of my challenge is to think of a way to show that person love this week.  What is something kind that you can do for them that will really help them out?  I hope through the acts of love to them, you will find it easier to show them more love in the future.