Loving the Unlovable

 

Too often we judge people for their peculiarities and idiosyncrasies. We categorize them, box them up in neat little packages and stick them away on a shelf in our mind, ignoring them as much as possible.

Once in a while our paths cross again, and we are forced to interact with this peculiar individual once more. We take down our box, stick new labels on them and place them back on the shelf as quickly as possible. They may be our neighbor, spouse, child, sibling, relative, church member, co-worker or even our employer.

Please realize that within each of these precious people is a wounded soul. They are a product of a lifetime of events, which molded their personality to give them unique characteristics, which may irritate or even wound us deeply.

We may go so far as to harbor bitterness toward them and possibly even dismiss them from our life as a lost cause (Ephesians 4:32). However, these unlovable people are diamonds in the rough.

They are created by God, and He has a special plan for their life, just as He has for us (Ephesians 2:10). God put them in our life for us to minister His Agape love to them and to give them a secure and nurturing place to live (Matthew 5:47).

We are all fallible and have our own weaknesses and peculiarities. How would you want this person to treat you? There is healing for everyone at the cross of Christ.

Sometimes, people are unaware of God’s grace, and He gives us opportunities to give them unconditional love, patience, security and friendship to model God's character to them. His plan for this relationship may be for us to help heal the deep wounds within their soul.

Prayer:

Father God, You create everyone in Your image. We are all unlovable until You redeem us (Ephesians 1:7). In fact, You loved us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8). Teach us that when we allow Your Agape love to flow through us to someone else, it is hard to stay angry at them or to consider them worthless.

Remind us to pray for them and to look for opportunities to bless them. You may just use this individual to bless us in some way too, if we look beyond the aspects of their life which irritate or hurt us, and love them anyway.

Thought for the Day:

Don’t throw people away, because God wants us to use our freedom in Him to love and serve one another, just as He died for and blesses us. – Galatians 5:13

The Futility of Worse Case Scenarios

Painful incidences teach us to be wary of life and to fear the future. We imagine situations that may never occur. These are called “worse case scenarios.”

In order to feel powerful over life, we rehearse these invented circumstances in our imagination, trying to come up with coping skills to deal with any event, which may possibly attempt to blindside us.

This habit causes us to squander our human assets in time, money and energy on an event, which may never happen.

This pattern may also cause a negative attitude toward life and may even result in depression or addictions to provide us with an illusory defense from future pain.

Sometimes, unnecessary and malicious punishment cause us to grow up taking our self too seriously, never learning to laugh at our self or trust anyone in life.

We cannot even trust God, because we harbor the false belief that He allows bad things to happen to us; when actually sin in the world is the real culprit here.

Some people make no decisions at all for fear of making a mistake. If we do make the wrong choice, we overreact and berate our self over our lapse in judgment.

We worry endlessly over things we have said or done, fearing that others will reject us. We rehash past and future conversations in our mind, which does not help at all.

These emotions then fuel negative and addictive habits that we use to cope with our buried feelings. We use them to prevent ourselves from feeling our fears, or to silence the negative thoughts playing over and over in our mind.

These thoughts may be attached to some past experience or connected to some fear regarding the future.

When we put our worries to rest, we will find a whole new world of creativity and expression without the fear of failure and judgment from our self or others. We have God's pervading, abiding peace.

Even if someone disagrees with our opinion, or if we make a mistake, we have no need to fear disapproval. Christ died to take away our fear, insecurities and condemnation (Romans 8:1-2)

Prayer:

Father God, as long as we do our best, that is all You require of us. You liberate us from the crippling effects of fear and condemnation. We enjoy new mental and physical health, restful sleep and peace-filled days without dread of the future (Proverbs 3:24).

As we seek You and focus on Your Kingdom on the earth, You provide all of our needs from Your glorious riches (Philippians 4:19). Thank You for healing us of our need to engage in worse case scenarios to feel the false security they provide. We give You all the praise, glory and honor for our freedom in Christ (Colossians 1:27).

Thought for the Day:

Serenity comes when we ask God to give us wisdom as we make a list of the things, which we can deal with our self; make another list of things we need to ask other people for help to deal with; and lastly make a list of the things we need to leave in God’s capable hands.