“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:30-31
L-O-V-E, easy to spell, seemingly easy to execute, but hard as anything if you want to do it God’s way1. For me, this is one of the major reasons why I don’t like to tell people I’m a Christian. Not that I’d deny it if people asked, but I don’t walk around going “OMGILOVEJESUS”. Don’t get me wrong, because God is an important part of my life. Yet here I am still learning to love the perfect God, who died for my sins, so how can I possibly love other people, especially the ones that just makes me want to curse them to hell and beyond? And if others can’t see the love of Christ flowing through me, I feel like saying “OMGILOVEJESUS” would be like a slap across God’s face.
I have a friend who falls into the “curse them to hell and beyond” category for me. The ironic thing is, he is Christian. But dear Lord, he is JUST SO DIFFICULT to deal with. One minute he’s happy and nice, the next he just starts snapping at you like you’ve murdered his family or something. I know it’s easy to love people when they’re nice, but for the love of God, I just can’t bring myself to love people when they’re being irrational twats like that. Yet God calls me to do it anyways. Needless to say, I’ve failed thus far, which is probably why I’m faced with the situation again and again. But God will help me grow. He’s doing it right now.
What are your experiences on loving difficult people?
- Read 1 Corinthians 13. That would be God’s definition of love, not the sappy fluffy twisted version our society has come up with ↩
Oh my gosh. I relate to this so well, I completely understand what you’re saying.
I don’t like being all, “OMGIGOTOCHURCH” and then coming up short of what I’m supposed to do…I’m afraid people will be like, “Ew, Christians are stupid.” etc. D:
That’s why I don’t like to label myself as a Christian, instead say I follow Jesus. Because I don’t follow religion, I follow God. If that makes sense xD