You Gotta Love The Mean People, Too

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.  

– Romans 12:10

Sometimes, I find it extremely difficult to love mean people.  Yesterday, I was running with my dog, Henry, on a trail that allows dogs to be off-leash.  He was bounding around, having the time of his life.  When I noticed a man coming toward us holding his leashed German Shepherd, struggling to break free, very close, I leashed Henry up, ran on by, and said, “Good morning.”  As soon as we passed, the man released the German Shepherd, who tore after Henry and me, jumping up to rest his paws on my shoulders and stare straight into my eyes.  I screamed, like any rational person would, pushed the dog down, and whipped around to ask the owner for some help.  Silently, he kept walking.  All I could see was the back of his brown jacket moving further into the distance.  I imagined a smile on his face.

Have you ever found yourself in a similarly unbelievably situation where the person you are with is rude or mean beyond measure?  What’s your first response?  Are you quick to know what to say or do you get tongue tied, like I do, because your brain is trying to comprehend the unbelievable and all you can think is, “Is this is actually happening!” 

Fortunately, God is better than we are.  God’s first response is to love, and no one is excluded.  Isn’t that crazy?  Paul, writing in the book of Romans, was trying to encourage Christians to become more like Jesus.  He explained that God loves, therefore we are to imitate Him and love others the way He does.  Yes, we’re to love even the mean people in our lives.  But how?

As I studied God’s love and dug deeper into this question – How to love others like God does– I discovered three key things we can do to make this possible.  

• First, we are to pray for the difficult, hard-to-love people in our lives. By praying, God can soften our hearts to feel compassion for those who would otherwise drive us crazy.  Pray blessings of good health, wholeness, and happiness over them.
• Secondly, we are to “Step into their Shoes” and try to better understand why they are hurting.  Rick Warren teaches that “Hurt people hurt people.”  Isn’t that true?  Most often, hurt comes from a wellspring of pain, anger, disappointment or other negative emotions.  
• Lastly, God thinks positive thoughts about us, so we should try to do the same for others.  Don’t rehash negative events over and over again.  Look for goodness and focus on these thoughts.

Here’s our formula to Love Like God = Pray + Better Understand + Good Thoughts = God can change our hearts.  So thankful He can.

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