How many hard-to-love people are in your life? I don’t mean the
guy who cut you off on the freeway last week or that store clerk
who ignored you recently. I’m talking about people who are regular
residents of your day-to-day world, people you are related to or
who work with you or live near you. Those are the folks I want to
discuss with you. My guess is if I asked you to come up with a name
that irks you just to hear it, you could come up with one pretty
quickly.
How many hard-to-love people are in your life? I don’t mean the guy who cut you off on the freeway last week or that store clerk who ignored you recently. I’m talking about people who are regular residents of your day-to-day world, people you are related to or who work with you or live near you. Those are the folks I want to discuss with you. My guess is if I asked you to come up with a name that irks you just to hear it, you could come up with one pretty quickly.
Why do people act in ways that make them so hard to love? We could cite lots of reasons, but there is one overarching cause: as human beings we are prone to sin and that in itself makes someone hard to love. Romans 3:10-12 says all of us are in that boat. We’re all, at times, selfish and petty, but beyond the fact that we are all human and hard to love sometimes, I believe there are three basic types of people who are especially hard to love.
First, there are those whose hearts are empty. They are people who have never experienced genuine love, or they did once upon a time but have now lost it. These folks are literally love-starved, so they take all the love you can give them and demand more. You can never stay with them long enough, talk with them enough, or encourage them enough. And after your encounters with them, you feel drained and defeated. Anyone in your life like that? Someone whose heart is just empty?
Then there are those whose hearts are hurting. All of us have been hurt, but some of us, even after long periods of healing, have hearts that are still like open wounds. Have you ever had a wound that was in the process of healing when someone accidentally bumped it? What did you do? You probably screamed in pain and pulled back so you wouldn’t get bumped again. When you are around someone whose heart is hurting and you unknowingly say or do something that touches their heart wound, they will either snap at you or pull back so you can’t hurt them anymore. And you may be left still not knowing what you said or did.
Sometimes this process repeats itself enough times that whenever you are around this person you feel like you are walking on eggshells; you never know if they are going to blow up or withdraw, and this makes loving them a very challenging proposition.
Finally, there are those whose hearts are hard. These are usually people whose hearts have been on empty or hurt for so long that they’ve given up trying to build relationships with others. They are so tired of the pain that they’ve decided to just shut down. They become so cynical or uncaring that they are virtually impossible to love.
Some of us who try over and over again to reach out to these hard to love people get to the point where we say, “why bother?” And some of us quit bothering, we decide to just walk away. Let’s be honest: there will be times when walking away from the relationship, at least for a time, is the best option. On the other hand, most of us give up far too quickly. We should never abandon a relationship, even for a little while, until we have done all we can do to facilitate healing (important side note: I said “facilitate.” We can never bring about the healing these folks need; only God can make a broken heart new again).
Next week we are going to look at four practical steps God says you and I can take to facilitate the healing that needs to take place.
