Skip to main content

When You Are Dealing With, Or Being, One Of "Those" People


Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love (Ephesians 4:2)

          We all have them, those people whom we find it difficult to be around, let alone love. They're boring. They're pushy. They're so needy they suck the life right out of you. They think they're great, or rich, or beautiful, or cool, or intelligent, or.... For you, they are high maintenance people. Today's passage doesn't tell us to enjoy these people. It tells us something much harder. In fact, what it tells us is so hard that it would probably be easier to find something about these people that you can enjoy. We are to be completely humble - not just somewhat, and completely gentle. We're to be patient. We're to bear with one another with love even if we don't like being around them. If our bearing with is grudging, it's not humble, and may not be gentle or patient. Certainly it's not loving. In fact, Jesus told His disciples to go two miles when commanded to go one.
       There is an simple difficult path to being humble, and patient and bearing with one another in love. Step One: Pray that you will be a blessing to those you encounter. Step Two: Obey. Step Three: Return to step one. At some point, we all need to use this with  everyone we meet.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
On the Calendar:
 Flag Day

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...
2 comments
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more