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.