Dealing With Difficult People

I feel like this is definitely a topic we can all relate to.

2020 has been in the words of my sister "A year of unveiling".

I have been in a season where I had to really learn how to deal with difficult people. I found myself being frustrated, irritated and stressed. Our natural responses are to be difficult back to the person that is being difficult to us, but I knew that wouldn't be right for me to do.

The more I focused on the persons behavior the more overwhelming it became. My focus was no longer on God at this point but on the individual and the situation I was in. It really started to affect me spiritually.

It's normal in the world to feel upset with the driver that cut into your lane or to feel a way because someone took long to reply to your text, so you make them wait on your reply just to give them a taste of their own medicine or being irritated with difficult family members or getting upset with difficult people at work. Those little undermined jabs you continue to throw just so you can feel better in getting revenge.

If we are not careful we can easily get caught up into these types of behaviors. That mindset of I will do to you what you do to me, but how can we be good to others if your main focus is to compete with others on the wrong they do to you? What example of Christ would I be? What would my heart be like? The Bible says in Romans 12:21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Think about it.. Do we want to spend our life trying to settle every score with every person that wronged us? Just think about how exhausting that is! To try and think about the exact perfect punishment to hit them back with. This type of mindset creates extreme stress and hurts us spiritually. Because of most of what we've been through in our past we feel we don't have it in us to deal with one more difficult person, so we go on defending ourselves, protecting our territory and being easily frustrated, but God is saying "Look! You walk differently now, you can go on being good and loving people in spite of their actions and I'll take care of the rest, leave this in my hands".

So we can actually genuinely let stuff go we don't have to no longer hold anything over anyone. How gracious is God! God revealed to me that the stakes are bigger than me going toe to toe with a difficult person. It's all about what it looks like to reflect Jesus. You dealing with the situation in a Godly way has to do with more than just you and yourself improvement. It has to do with the souls of other people and the God of this world.

We have to be the example that we want to see so the change starts with you/me. Loving them God's way and most importantly praying for these difficult human beings. We are so quick to be hard on others but easy on ourselves. We have to forgive how God forgave us and we have to give grace like God gives grace to us every single day. We never know what someone is going through and the weight they're carrying. We need to be gracious. It's hard to see outside of ourselves sometimes. So let's be faithful and Love people and let God be the judge.

Always remember this is not your fight to fight. Seek peace! Amen.

LOVE BRI