Loving Those Who Are Hard To Love

Loving those who love us. That, for the most part, is easy to do, isn’t it?

Those who:

Show us love.

Tell us “I love you” often.

Are kind to us.

Show grace to us.

But what about loving those who are hard to love?

Those who:

Aren’t kind.

Don’t like us.

Are down-right mean to us.

Would rather not have us in their lives.

Would you agree with me, those individuals are harder to love?

I’m one who likes people to like me. It bothers me when someone doesn’t. It bothers me more when someone treats me awful. My hurt can turn into something pretty ugly. I can be tempted to treat them as they treat me. Or worse.

But we aren’t called to do that, are we?

Remember the “Golden Rule?” Treat others as you want to be treated.

God has something to say about that in Matthew.

The Voice translation says it like this:

This is what our Scriptures come to teach: in everything, in every circumstance, do to others as you would have them do to you. Matthew 7:12

I find it interesting it doesn’t say, “sometimes,” or “when you feel like it.” It says “in everything, in every circumstance.”

It doesn’t say, “do to others only if they treat you nice.” It says, “do to others as you would have them do to you.”

And it doesn’t say, “if they don’t respond to you the way you think they should, stop doing to others as you would have them do to you.”

My feelings, my desires, my preferences are removed. If I want to be treated a certain way, I am to treat others that way. Period.

I want to be treated with respect, so I am to treat others with respect.

I want to be heard, so I will listen to others.

I desire to be appreciated and valued. I will appreciate and value others.

I desire to be loved. I am to love.

Will I ever master this? I can get discouraged thinking how far I fall short.

How are you doing loving those who are hard to love?

Take heart, my friend. We need to remind ourselves, we can’t love others effectively on our own. We can’t.

But, what we can do, is take each of these relationships to God, and ask Him to help us love the other in the way He wants us to. We can ask God to help us see the other through His eyes, and not our own. We can remind ourselves to “do to others as we would have them do to us.”

Let’s give it a try today. Let’s love the hard to love in the same manner we desire to be loved.

It probably won’t be easy, and we might want to give up. But don’t. Let’s do what God is asking us to do, and remove how we “feel” about the person or the situation. Let’s love, no matter what.

Thank you for joining me today on Day 10 of 31 Days Of Loving God & Loving Others!

Julie