We all have people in our lives who irritate us and make our lives difficult. We think to ourselves: “If only that person could go away my life would be so much better.” We are right, our lives would be easier without that annoying person in it. Clearly comfort and ease isn’t God’s highest priority for us in this life, what God wants for us is holiness. What is holiness? Choosing to do the right thing despite the challenges, not because your life is free from challenges. If we take a closer look at our lives we will notice that this life is all about growth, God is refining us in the fire. It isn’t easy or comfortable to grow, but that is what this life is all about. Heaven will be different, heaven will be completely free from evil, but this world will never be that way.
King David was a guy who was tempted to get rid off the man who was making his life a living hell. David had an enemy named Saul who tried to kill him. One day when Saul was out looking for David with plans to kill him David had a chance to kill Saul. I bet David thought about it long and hard. He finally had a chance to kill the guy who was making his life so difficult. A chance to get rid off the problem once and for all. What problem or person do you have in your life that you wish you could get rid off?
David ended up feeling conscience-stricken for even considering the option of taking Saul’s life. David realized something that few of us realize. Was Saul making David’s life very difficult? Yes. Could God take away this difficult person out of David’s life if he wanted to? Yes. Then maybe, just maybe, there was a reason God left this difficult person in David’s life. What if that difficult person or problem that you want to get rid off is God’s tool for shaping you and growing you? We don’t just wake up one day and realize that we are holy. God is shaping us toward holiness every single day in this life. The truth is, if we only surround ourselves with people who like us and agree with us we don’t grow. There is a purpose for every blessing and there is a purpose for every struggle. What is God trying to grow in you through your current struggle? Is it patience? Is it compassion for others? Is God using this difficult situation in your life as a tool to shave off some of that selfishness in your heart?
When people are making our lives a living hell we hate them (or at least we resent them). We don’t want to honor them and respect them. The only way we can show honor and respect to a difficult person is if we zoom out. If we zoom in we notice that this difficult person has some serious issues that he/she should work on. Issues that isn’t our responsibility. But if we zoom out we will notice that there are some issues in our own soul that is making us choose to resent, disrespect or even hate the difficult person.
We are all called by God to love people. The Bible is not calling us to love the nice, fun, friendly, happy, perfect people who have no issues. No, the Bible calls us to love people period. We all like the idea of love, until we realize how difficult love really is to accomplish. Here’s the thing: we say we want to be “all about love” but we lie to ourselves. Many times during the week we do not want love. We want to resent, dishonor, disrespect and maybe even hate others. We choose love.
Love is always a choice. And God, who is in the business of shaping us toward holiness, is watching every step we take and seeing how we treat both the nice person and the difficult person. I’m not responsible for anyone else’s actions, but I’m responsible for every single one of my own actions. David says this about his difficult situation: “The LORD forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the LORD’s anointed, or lay my hand on him; for he is the anointed of the LORD.” (1 Samuel 24:6)
If we are going to be able to love people, even when they are making our lives difficult, we need to realize that every person on this Earth is God’s child. How dare we even consider doing something evil toward one of God’s children? Yes, this world is filled with people who are messed up and practicing evil, but that does not mean that we are free to hate them or dishonor them. When we realize that every situation we are faced with is a lesson in love and righteousness, we will be able to choose love.
Here’s another thought: if we choose to not learn our lesson now, we can be sure that once our problem is gone God will send another difficult person our way to teach us that same lesson. There’s been so many times in my life that I believed that my problems would be over if only that difficult person was out of my life. I was wrong. Unless I learn what God is trying to teach me I will continue to run into similar problems year after year, and then I wonder why I have such “bad luck” in life. Let’s not waste our lives on repeating the same mistakes year after year.
No comments:
Post a Comment