“It is not enough to love. People have to feel that they are loved.” Saint John Bosco
I think we can all think of someone whether it is a family member, a friend, a teacher, a coach, that is not all that lovable. Maybe someone has wronged you and you feel like you deserve to be angry at them. Maybe someone has neglected you. Maybe someone has simply made you feel lesser. Heres the deal: we will always encounter people that are hard to love. Truly loving people is never easy. Because of that, I made a list of 4 “Ps” to follow when you encounter people that are hard to love. Ive learned these over the past few years of high school and middle school, but definitely don’t know all the answers so take everything with a grain of salt.
1. Patience
“Love is patient, love is kind” 1 Corinthians 13:4
To me, this is the most important “P.” In order to love people, we have to be patient with them, just as God is patient with us. We wrong God hundreds of times each day, yet he waits for us and loves us. We aren’t perfect, and Christ accepts that. I always jokingly tell people that “Patience is a virtue,” but FOR REAL guys patience IS a virtue!! It takes time to learn (trust me I’m not quite there yet) and causes you to humble yourself. Patience is so important because NO ONE is perfect. Ive had to learn this slowly and carefully over my years of high school. I was always expecting MORE from my friends. I felt turned away from when they made ANY mistake and I felt angry towards them when they did anything less than perfect. However, one day it hit me that NO ONE IS PERFECT. I am mistakingly seeing all these flaws in my friends, growing more impatient day by day, when really they were just sinners, just as I am. God loves us even though we still sin, just as we need to love people even though they sin.
2. Perspective
Perspective, to me, is another incredibly important “P.” They always say you can never understand someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes. How true is that guys?? Ive learned that sometimes people are completely cruel for supposedly not reason. However, once I stepped back and got a different perspective of their situation I completely understood their pent up anger and resentment. Maybe someone is really sick in their family, maybe their parents are getting divorced, maybe they have mental health issues, etc., etc. There are SO many reasons and ways people tend to become angered and hard to love but most of the times what they need is TO BE LOVED even more than we could ever imagine. A lot of times these people are craving attention and the only way they can find it is through the pain of other people. To me, that is a cry for help: a cry for us to reach out our hands and pick them off their feet and tell them thateverything is okay.
3. Pride
“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” Proverbs 11:2
In order to fully love someone you truly truly TRULY have to put away your own pride. C.S Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity,
“For pride is spiritual cancer; it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”
Pride is truly just that. It takes away any sense of bettering yourself and focuses in on only bettering other people. Someone may have hurt you so bad, or may make you SO angry, but maybe when you lose your pride you might start to see that what they did is so much like something you would do. I do think sometimes people TRULY hurt. I am not saying that they dont. However, we tend to exaggerate circumstances by constantly telling ourselves, “They did this…they did that….i would never do that….etc, etc.” If we want to love someone we have to eliminate the idea that we are better than them and rather walk hand-in-hand with them.
4. Privacy
“Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.” Luke 12:2-3
Lastly, is privacy. This one might sound a little bit weird, but it is SO SO SO SO SO important especially if you are in a fight with a friend. What I mean by the word “privacy” is to keep your problems between yourself and God. In other words, no gossiping. It can be so hard to get in a huge fight with a friend and NOT pick up the phone to call or text another friend to discuss what just happened. However, I’ve learned that this is so spiritually eroding. I still struggle with this constantly, but Ive learned is that when I share my “struggles” with a friend when i just need to “vent” I end up being so so mean towards the person that hurt me. I spew out an indescribable stream of words that glorify nothing and no one. All gossiping does is turn your friends against the one friend that hurt you, which is not the right way to handle problems at all. As I’ve grown spiritually, I have learned that if I have a major problem with a friend to go RIGHT to them. Otherwise, I build up resentment and bitterness in my heart for spans of time as long as a year, (while also sharing my issues with other people) and then the situation suddenly blows out of proportion and EVERYONE involved gets hurt even a friend who simply just listened to me gossip. Because of that, our problems between people need to be kept in quiet prayer with our Savior.
Okay. There you have it, the four “Ps.” I hope that next time you are angry at someone and feel like you could NEVER love them again that you think about patience, privacy, perspective, and pride. Loving people can be hard, but in the end it is so so worth it.
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