Loving everyone

Jesus calls on us to love everyone including those who hurt us. This post is about loving difficult people.


Surely, I can't be the only person who has this problem. Its easy to love people for whom everything is a struggle who do bad things, but are only dimly aware of them. Its a lot harder to love the people who are malicious or who are self-righteous. Its complicated by the fact that I am (or can be) extremely self-righteous myself, especially in pursuit of what I think is right. I cannot bear it when I perceive that someone is deliberately hurting another, especially someone who is powerless. God calls us to such a high standard. I could love the person who shrieks obscenities at me from a gutter, but struggle to care about the bureaucrat whose standards are based on a clean kitchen and a relatively untroubled life. Am I passing judgment? Probably. My sin is double.

Updates (Like Anyone is Reading This)

I decided to get involved in local politics. There, I said it. I appear to be a member of my local political committee. I decided that I couldn't complain if I didn't participate. The political conversation is extremely important and all voices are needed.

I just finished a mentoring program at my church and its helped focus things for me. Over the course of a year, I realized that relationships were going to be important -- however difficult that may be. There's a lot of talk about the importance of community and relationships in the emergent church thing. Unfortunately, its very easy to have the appearance of belonging to the community and relationship with its members without having any of the substance. Jesus talked to his disciples about the importance of the inner as well as the outer. If I look like a member but I'm not emotionally connected am I any better than the proverbial white washed tomb? I'm making friends in the community outside my church -- real ones and slowly. I find I'm having a harder time connecting with people from church. There seems to be more stuff to overcome to find common ground and feeling. I wonder if I'm the only one who has this difficulty. Maybe its just me. I have a really hard time with "churchy" church people. The jargon drives me nuts and I have been known to disagree with certain time honored platitudes -- or at least to put my own spin on them based on my own study. I go to a really cool pentecostal church with wonderful pastors, but . . .