How do you deal with difficult people ?
It's an age old question.
There are some folks that are just so difficult, no matter what you do, there's something they're gonna say about it. I guess that's why the Bible says live peaceably with all men, if possible.
So yeah, I realize some people are extremely difficult to get along with and it just isn't possible, no matter how hard you try, but I don't believe that is how everyone is! I believe we should do our best to try to love and treat people in the most Biblical way possible.
So what are some tips that we can use to deal with difficult people in way that would honor God ?
First of all, We should seek to....
Love those who are difficult
Matthew 22:36-40 gives a excerpt from Jesus himself as He discussed this with the rich young ruler....
Matthew 22:36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
We’ve all heard love your neighbor as yourself.
But what does it really mean "to love your neighbor?"
The word used for love here is agapao (cited: Strong's concordance # G25) Agapao actually means to love by choice and is an act of the will, or unconditional love. (Also, known as agape love)
Interestingly enough, it’s the exact same word used for love in John 3:16, where it says, “For God so loved the world
Wow!--
In essence, God is telling us, “Regardless of what they say, what they do, how you feel or don’t feel….
I want you to love them the way I love you.”
That's a tall order!!
Ever heard that saying... "love like Jesus..." ???
I don't know about you, but for me, it is easy to love folks when they are doing good to me or they are people I like and get along with well, but it is so much harder to genuinely love people that do evil to me, are snooty or two faced, talk about me, or have hurt me (or someone close to me).
I don't think I'm alone in that struggle . It is our human nature to do good to those that do good to us and want to do evil to those who do evil to us Jesus himself said that in Luke 6:26-38 --It is part of our fallen sinful nature, to lash out at those who lash out at us, to revile those who revile us but remember, we are supposed to be like Christ!
Remember the Great Commission He gave us?
“Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.”
So by reading Jesus' words here, He is essentially saying....
Do good to the difficult people in your life
“And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." Luke 6:31
Do unto others as you would have
them do unto you.
We’ve all heard the golden rule, haven't we?
But seriously, How can we "be good" to someone who is being difficult or is just downright mean or malicious to us ?
The word good (cited: Strong's concordance # G2570) means well. We’ve heard that definition before. Well and good are often synonymous.
However, another definition emerged that I found very interesting. It also means “rightly, so that there shall be no room for shame.”
God is reminding us to watch what we say about the offending person! We don’t want to say something that we will be ashamed of or regret later.
If fact, Jesus goes even further to say....
That we should bless them that curse us--
What??? Come on, Jesus! How can we bless those who are hard to deal with or those who speak ill of us??
I used to think “blessing our enemies” meant asking God to bless them and help them. When I would get upset with someone but the Lord would check me and I would feel convicted of how I was feeling or behaving, I would ask the Lord to bless them, thinking that I was "blessing" them as instructed by Scripture, but upon further study, I believe that isn't what Jesus was saying at that point in the passage.
As I reread His commission, I realized that I was confusing "blessing" with "praying". (Which come next, but we can't skip over the blessing part...)
Bless in this passage is the word eulogeo (cited: Strong's concordance #2127 ) It comes from the words well and speech.
So Jesus was actually saying to bless means "to speak well" of the person. It is my job to "bless" them with my speech. What??!!
Wow, that’s a different ballgame !
So often, we will ask God to bless someone that irritates us ( pietiously thinking we are obeying Gods command to "bless") and then go about and tell our friends/family what that person did or said to us. We go on and on about we can't believe they would do such a thing.
It sounds Childish--Saying it like that. But it's so true! I would venture to say that WE ALL have done it at least a time or two. It is our nature to seek emotional support from our friends/family when we feel we have been wronged or slighted.
It's natural to want people to take our side in the rift..... and as a result, we speak ill of the person in question to others in order to feel like we are supported or at very least, that our feelings concerning the situation are validated by someone else.
Remember the cliché, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”?
By his directive for us to "bless" (or speak well) of the offending party, Jesus is calling us, as believers, to an even higher plane of spiritual maturity than that by commanding us to not just withhold the negative, but to actually speak well of that person.
That is something we can only do through Christ. It goes against everything in our own sinful nature to speak well of someone who has hurt us or as Jesus put it, "despitefully used us".
Jesus is our prime example of this-- (He doesn't ask anything of us that He hasn't done Himself!) Look how He was badly he was mistreated, abused, scorned, ridiculed, beat, and ultimately killed!! He was completely innocent yet, as He hung there dying, we see Jesus asking His father to forgive the perpetrators of this great wickedness and "lay not this sin to their charge"--Wow! What compassion! What love!! What forgiveness!
I want to LOVE like that !
Next, we are commanded to pray for those difficult people
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; Matthew 5:44
Many times our first instinct is to retaliate against someone who is difficult. "They hurt me so I am going to hurt them" -- but that is not how it works in the Kingdom of God.
Yes, God understands our human emotions and He knows exactly how it feels to be hurt by someone (especially someone close to us -- my word, Jesus was betrayed by those He spent years with!) but God doesn't leave us without hope or a plan of action!
When we take a look back at these verse we have been alluding to in Luke 6 and Matthew 5, have you noticed the outline or the order in which Jesus gives us the commission on how to deal with difficult people (or our enemies as the passage refers to)??
I am a firm believer that God strategically puts things in the Bible in certain ways. After all, He is a God of order. As we began to look at the order of Jesus’ words I found it interesting that He tells us to love them, be good to them, bless them, and then, after all that, we are to pray for them.
If we have done these other things first, by the time we do pray for them, there is a good chance our hearts would have changed (or softened) towards them. If we were to pray for this difficult person first, it is likely that we would do so begrudgingly and cancel out our prayers with negative comments/thoughts about that person afterward.
Making a conscious effort to love despite what someone is doing to me, to do good to them as repayment for the evil they have done to me, to speak well of them no matter how they are speaking to others of me, to pray for them when they seek to ruin me---those are things that I must have help from another world to accomplish!!
But it doesn't stop there.....
We are also instructed to :
Give to them
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. " Luke 23:34
“If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, And the LORD shall reward thee.” Proverbs 25:21-22
“My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” 1 John 3:18
Giving to someone who is difficult seems like an odd thing to do, right?
When I give someone a gift, it is meant to be a blessing. It's hard to give someone who is difficult or has made my life miserable by their words or deeds, a blessing. Nope, it is not easy to do in this ol' flesh, that's for sure.
So what are we suppose to be giving, anyway? you may ask....
For this part, it is so important to be “in tune” with God, to really seek Him on what we are to give.
Why? Because He knows what that person needs. (sometimes we have to keep reminding ourselves that it’s not about me!)
Perhaps it’s forgiveness, grace, kindness, compassion, understanding, love, a smile, a kind word, words of affirmation, praise in front of others, your time and effort to help them in time of need, etc.,
or.....it could be even be an actual physical gift.
Yes, I said an actual gift.
When I receive a gift, I rarely think, “What a mean person! Why would they give me a gift?”
I may feel surprised (and perhaps question their motives), but if someone were doing the things mentioned above, their motives would be presented pure, right?
As we see here in Proverbs 25:21-22, we are instructed if our enemy be hungry, we should feed him; if he is thirsty, we should give him a drink.
What? But Lord, you know how they treated me. I was nice to them and they said this. Or they lied on me. Or they broke my trust. They betrayed me. Etc.... but I don't read where there are any exceptions...
He simply said (in other words) if you see your enemy (or that difficult person in your life-- we, good Christians, don't use the word enemy! Lol 😂 ) have a need, if you are able, meet that need.
But God....for real? Yep! That's what He says!
“But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” 1 John 3:17
Does the love of God dwell in us?
Giving a gift (whether physical or spiritual in nature) or providing for a specific need can open doors--- doors for that person to be healed of their own wounds and for us to be blessed by God for our obedience to His Word.
What?? We can be blessed by God for simply our obedience to His Word concerning how we deal with those difficult people in our lives???
Yes! 1000 times! Yes!! 🙌🏼
After giving us the outline on how to handle difficult people, Jesus gives us a great promise for our obedience:
“But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” Luke 6:35-38
That sounds like some promises worth looking forward to!
He is saying if we do what He says, our reward is gonna be great! We are gonna be His children-- children of the Highest ! He is going to show us mercy! He is going to give us forgiveness and pardon! He is going to fill iis life with blessings to where we won't be able to contain it all-- pressed down, and shaken together, and running over...sounds pretty awesome to me !!
He knows that, in our own strength, we can not do such feats. We must surrender to Him in order for us to become like Him. As John would put it, He must increase, and I must decrease. It takes a person that has died out to this ol' flesh to be able to love when they are done wrong, to speak well of someone when they are mocked by that person , to give when they are scorned, to pray for someone when they are being despitefully used.
The closer we get to our Savior, the easier it becomes to look at others through His eyes. When we think about just what He endured for us, our own difficulties with those around us pale in comparison. Sometimes, being able to keep that in perspective is all we need to enable us to love like Christ!
Daily dying out to this old flesh is a sure fire way to equip our self to do the Lord's commands. A selfish person has trouble when others do them wrong. Their pride and self-esteem take a hit when they are attacked by others.
It takes a humble and selfless person to look past "what being done to me" and instead, look at our Savior. Too often, we make it "all about me", instead of "all about HIM!!" That is my prayer -- God, help me make it all about YOU!
By allowing God to use you in this matter when dealing with enemies or difficult people, I truly believed, eventually, God will bring that person around and by your actions (and lack of REaction), they can be restored.
It may not happen in overnight, in a day, a week, or even a year... it make take a lifetime but God is true to His Word and He can be trusted! His Word Works!! Don't get discouraged! God is working behind the scenes even now! All we got to do is to do our part and leave the rest up to Him!!
In closing, Let me ask you---
Are you dealing with difficult people in your life?
Is God speaking things for you to do that could bring healing, not just to you personally or to the person involved, but for the relationship itself?
Dear sisters, the things God asks us to do are not always easy, but rest assured, they will be fruitful. (In due season, we shall reap!)
As we step out and do what He’s asked us to do, I pray that we all will experience Him on a whole new level!!
It is true we can't solve problems in our own might! We can't repair relationships by our wisdom ! (We usually make a bigger mess when we try !!)
So take heart!! He didn't leave us without hope! He gave us an outline! Read the Book! Follow His directives! His ways work! God can fix it!
Seeking Him,
-Tiphanie 💕