People aren’t easy to love. They are irrational, irritating, bipolar beings. People are complicated and usually have all their thoughts, feelings, and emotions in some sort of difficult, wadded-up ball of goop that can’t entirely be separated. People basically make no sense. Ever. And when you think they do, it’s only because you want them to.
And that’s not even thinking about their actions. People hurt each other, they say demeaning things, they are sarcastic, and they smile and act like they are okay when they’re sad. Did I mention that they’re also bipolar with all their actions, too?
Yeah, people are difficult, and difficult people are hard to love.
Therefore, we must fight to love them, fight to care deeply about them, and allow ourselves to emotionally connect on a not-so-shallow level. This is hard, really hard. I don’t want to love people who have hurt me. I don’t want to love the people who confuse me emotionally. Are we friends or are we not-friends? I don’t want to love the people who ignore me sometimes and act like we’re friends at other times. I don’t want to love the people who frustrate me or make me jealous.
I just don’t want to love ____________.
Seriously.
I don’t want to love people, but God designed me to love. He didn’t just design me to love one type of people but all people, no matter who they are or what they’ve done.
That’s hard.
Often, I have to fight to love them. With all of my being, I have to fight to love them.
The question the remains is: how do I fight to love?
This has been a difficult question for me to answer. I tried just playing nice, but earlier this semester, I found out that me “trying to just play nice” caused me to fall flat on my face last year. It didn’t work. In fact, instead of loving, I ended up going in the opposite direction and I didn’t even know it.
Now, when I see someone who I may be struggling to love, I pray. Dear God, please let me love ______ well. And then I go for it. I greet them, maybe ask how their day is going or how their [insert activity here] went. Even though words are coming out of my lips, I’m praying the entire time. I know that if I even try to act on my own apart from God, I will fall flat on my face and fail to love. I have to fight to love, and I fight through prayer.
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