The Art of Loving Difficult People

I don’t care how large or small your church is, at some point you will be confronted by someone who is a challenge to love.

They might be a critic or complainer. Sometimes their personality naturally clashes with yours. Whatever the struggle, you are still their pastor’s wife. How do you love them in a way that is authentic? 

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Behave in loving ways regardless of what your emotions might be screaming.  

Speak kindly when they don’t. Sometimes this means taking the time to speak a hard truth to them about poor behavior. In God's economy loving behavior is far more about doing than feeling. Do the right thing and trust God with your feelings. Acknowledge important events in your challenging person's life with graciousness and generosity, which will probably surprise them. Refuse to speak ill of them to others.  

Ask God to grant you insight into the pain behind ugly behavior. 

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There are a million reasons people act ugly, but it all starts in the heart and mind. God holds the keys to all hearts and minds and can show you ways you may be unintentionally offending them or hurting them simply because you look and sound like something or someone who has hurt them in the past.  

Ugly words and actions can also arise when people perceive themselves as power brokers and you threaten their power structure. This must be dealt with lovingly but firmly as you and your husband, possibly your board, help them understand that God placed your husband as the Chief Shepherd of your church, not them. Some people will receive this, others will leave in a huff.

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. You are not responsible for their response to truth spoken with grace. 

​Ask God  for greater grace for that person. 

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Think about the haters and fools that hounded Jesus regularly, even as he suffered on the cross. How did he behave? Has he promised to come alongside you and teach you how to behave like he did? He surely has. And God’s heart is blessed when you ask him for greater skills to love one of his children. 

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Understand and accept that God is using that difficult person to refine you. 

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God will use difficult people as a mirror for us at times. He will reveal our flaws to us when they press our buttons. At times, God’s trying to work something into us. Like courage to speak up instead of going along with ungodly behavior cause you’re trying to avoid a fight. And finally, he’s trying to work stuff out of us. I tend toward impatience easily, so God has brought along several folks whose stubbornness becomes a challenge to my tongue and my attitude. If someone is truly bugging you, notice what your negative response is. That’s the place where God is probably trying to do some chiseling work in you. 

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In general, when God drops a difficult-to-love person in my life,

it is usually more about me than them.

Let him do his work in you through ornery folk,

and don’t’ dislike them for it.