How to Love the Hard-To-Love

"When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed..."

Luke 14v12-14a

So, if hospitality is in the Bible, and it's in there for our good and God's glory, how come it doesn't FEEL like the finale in The Greatest Showman?


All of us magically in sync, understanding and appreciating each other for our God-given gifts and blind to each others faults?

Aside from the fact that my husband refuses to wear a top hat, it doesn't feel like a musical because
my biggest struggle is not with the catering, or the pre-cleaning, or the post-cleaning but with the people.

There are different categories of people in our lives. We might not like to label it in that way, but it's true nonetheless. There are those who are like family (usually this is made up of some actually family). There are those who we don't know as much about, there are those we don't get, and there are those who, as hard as we try, are just hard work.

There are a lot of reasons why these people are hard to love. Maybe they rub you up the wrong way. Maybe they have nothing in common with you. Maybe they're ungrateful, or arrogant, or rude. Maybe they have an addiction. Maybe they have mental health issues. Whatever the reason behind this difficult relationship, that reason doesn't always help us in the relationship.

So many times I have sat at my kitchen table and selfishly asked myself;

"What can I possibly say to their situation?"

"How can I have this conversation AGAIN?"

"Why. Won't. They. Listen?"

We live in cancel culture. Whereby if we don't like something we can simply erase it from life. But the Bible doesn't say that. In fact it says the opposite.

It says;

Love your enemies. (Luke 6v27)
Pray for those who persecute you. (Matthew 5v44)
Bear one another's burdens. (Galatians 6v2)
Invite the hard to love over, not your mates. (Luke 14v12-14)

So HOW??????????

By looking at the example...

Loving the hard to love can be done. Because we've seen it done. In Jesus.

"But He was GOD?!?!?!" you say (I can hear you from here).

Yes, He was, but that fact is the reason we find it hard and He didn't, not the reason it's impossible.

It's not impossible. It is just hard.

When we remember Jesus and all He did on this earth and WHY He did it all. And of the glorious home that awaits us, that can never perish, spoil or fade, we remember that we should. 

When we remember the sacrifice Jesus made for us to be with him forever. That He sweat drops of blood before he did it. That He prayed for another way and still went through with it WHEN WE WERE PRETTY HARD WORK OURSELVES, we remember that we can. 

When we remember that Jesus gave us a promise of a Helper as He went back into the glory of heaven. The perfect home that He left behind to come down to earth, where He was unappreciated, beaten, mocked and killed. We remember that we'll do it by the grace of God. 

When we remember that God didn't just zap us into heaven the moment we were saved for a reason. That He invented church and surrounded us with other believers so that we could encourage each other. We remember that we don't have to do it alone. 

It's not all on you to love the hard to love. We should find it hard because we're not perfect just like those hard to love people sat round our table. In taking it on ourselves and doggedly hacking away at it (as only sinners can) we're taking the glory from God and boasting in ourselves. 

The hard to love are hard work.

But so are you (and especially me).

And Jesus died for us anyway.

How do we love the hard to love?

By remembering Jesus who is easy to love.

Things I got wrong:

1. Pray

The greatest thing I have found, and found the very hard way, is that reading my Bible everyday and praying is NOT an option. Just like I wouldn't think to leave the house naked, I can't do my day without the Bible and a chat with Jesus. If I'm running late, I still get dressed. Our Bible times should be the same. It's basic. But it's life saving. 

2. Get back-up

We were put into church community for a reason. Because we NEED other Christians to help us. Help us see God at work. Help us understand Him better. And to help us see our own sin. If you have someone hard coming over, call for back-up. And if you get a invite at short notice from a friend who's having hard work people over, don't think you'll be adding to the stress by turning up. You won't. Their call is a cry for help and they are drowning not waving.

3. Look for the blessings not the curses.

It's easy to get sucked into the rubbish-ness of it all. To focus on what was not said. Or heard. Or taken the right way. Or what was just plain crazy. But if the Bible says there's blessing to be had in all this then blessings there are. You may need to change your definition of blessing to find it. You may need to look REALLY hard for a REALLY long time. But it's there. And focusing on that will encourage you rather than drag you into a pit of despair.