Loving the Hard-to-Love Person
By: Alisha Headley
Editor’s note: This devotional is about loving the hard-to-love person in your life. We do not condone staying in an abusive relationship. If the “hard-to-love” person in your life is being abusive, call the U.S. National Domestic Violence Hotline to get help: 1-800-799-7233.
“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” – I John 4:11
There are people in this world who we find just plain hard to love. Perhaps it’s that co-worker, neighbor, or relative you have to see only a few times a year. But what if it’s also someone who is close to you, such as a spouse? Sometimes loving that hard-to-love person seems impossible.
It’s easy to love those who are loveable, right? Even Scripture acknowledges that in Luke 6:32 saying “If you love those who love you, what credit is that? Even sinners love those who love them.”
The truth is, loving the unlovable is hard if we are trying to love them out of our own strength. Especially when they have hurt us in any way. Even more, if they continue to hurt us. Some of us want to take revenge. Some of us withhold love in an effort to teach them a lesson. Some people just don’t deserve to be loved, right?
Let me ask you – do you feel YOU deserve to be loved? For all the filth, sin, and things you have done in your life that didn’t glorify God, your Maker? What makes you so deserving of love?
The truth is: we are so undeserving of His love. But yet, He still loves us. Nothing we can do or say will “separate us from the love of God” (Romans 8:39). No sin, no past, no addiction, no depression, no angel, or demon. Absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God.
God calls us to love just as He loves us. He commands us to love all throughout Scripture. We have heard these words since we are a child. The very first Sunday school hymn most of us learned early on were the words ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.’ We know these words. We speak these words telling our spouse and kids we love them every day. But do we actually LIVE OUT these words?
Love manifests itself through action. Jesus demonstrated this kind of love by hanging on a cross – the ultimate symbol of love. Think about this more deeply. Jesus left the splendor and perfection of heaven and entered the filth of earth because He loved us so much. He willingly agreed to suffer, to be beaten, betrayed by his closest friends, humiliated, accused, and wrongfully treated BECAUSE HE LOVED US.
When I feel wronged, my feelings tend to take over. But love isn’t a feeling, it’s an action. It looks like this: when someone hurts you, you love them anyway. You forgive anyways. You show them Christ by loving them. Let God deal with them in His time and in His way as that’s His job. It’s our job to love and keep on loving.
