When Others Are Not Easy to Love
A few years ago our church went through a Bible study called “Finding Peace In A World of Conflict.” We used material from the Christian organization “Peacemakers Ministry.” I highly recommend their ministry for Marriage and Family.
One of the sessions dealt with how to love people who are not easy to love. Sometimes God calls us to love people who cannot or will not love us in return. As I continue the series of blogs, “The Search for Contentment,” I want to address this issue for those of you who may be in a relationship with someone who is hard to love—especially if you have a loved one who at this time is in a season of self-absorption, rebellion, or relationship fog.
NO MAGIC ANSWERS
If you find yourself in a relationship with a person who is living in a fog of mental illness, or disability, or spiritual blindness, or anger, or a myriad of other infirmities, your own search for contentment is being challenged. The peace you crave is often transient. And as you forgive and serve, extend grace, mercy, and compassion, you may only receive fleeting glimpses of reciprocal gratitude. It’s a grueling, challenging, and tiring place to live life. However, rather than give up on the relationship, you can find more than just glimpses of contentment. Let me first say this: THERE ARE NO EASY OR MAGICAL ANSWERS. But, there is a mindset, a prerequisite of the heart that will give you longer periods of breathing room and periods of personal peace as you wait for your loved one's heart to transform. Jesus revealed what that looks like for you in the story of the Prodigal Son.
THE HEART OF THE FATHER
Just as your Father in heaven loves you in the midst of your own times of spiritual, emotional, and moral confusion, as a Christ-follower you also can love others who are in a season of emotional and behavioral upheaval. The call for the Christ-follower is to love others as God loves you. The Apostle John wrote this in 1 John 4…
15 All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.
In order to love an unlovable person like this, you’ll need to gain a deeper understanding of the heart of God. Consider the story Jesus told of the lost son and his welcoming father (The Prodigal Son). The story of how the father reacts to his unlovable son demonstrates how deep God’s love is for you. It also provides a spiritual, emotional, and relational template to love the person who is not easy to love.
This ancient story of the Prodigal Son is set in the context of what Middle Easterners mistakenly thought about the character of God. They viewed him as a tough-minded task-master:
— If you live right and do right, you’ll be rewarded—if not, you get punished.
— If you’ve done well, God is happy with you—if not, God is angry.
— If you don’t follow God’s rules—he'll show you the door.
Well, Jesus saw all this misinformation, so he told a story meant to give the true nature of God. What Jesus says was shocking to those ancient Middle Easterners. It may be shocking to you today! The story is found in Luke 15:11-24…
A SHOCKING STORY!
Kenneth Bailey, a biblical scholar who lived most of his adult years in Israel, had hundreds of conversations with people in the Middle East about the story of the Prodigal Son. The typical response from Middle Easterners is this: “NEVER would the youngest son make such a request! Impossible—it would never be asked.” Bailey would then ask: “Yes, but if anyone ever did ask, what would happen?” Answer: “His father would beat him, of course. Because asking for an inheritance meant the son wanted his father to die!” That’s how the ancient Jew would interpret this story.
What appears to be a simple request was really a son’s curse for his father. The ancient Jew knew only too well that this son openly cursed his father, humiliated him, insulted him, embarrassed him, and as much, requested his father’s death. And that’s why Jesus told the story; for the shock value. How could the father forgive such treatment? This unlovable son should be beaten, disowned, and thrown out! End of story! Instead, Jesus had Kingdom of God lessons to teach. I want to dwell on two of those lessons:
1) People don’t understand how God measures sin and what his forgiveness and grace looks like.
2) Jesus knew that people didn’t know how to love and forgive unlovable people.
Truthfully, both lessons are still misunderstood today.
HOW GOD MEASURES MORAL WRONG
For many of us, sin is a mistake; just “blowing it.” It’s doing something bad. We kind of think, “Everyone blows it, so, no big deal.” But for Jesus, sin is like this young son’s request of inheritance from his father. Sin is wishing God were dead; out of the way, so you can have what you selfishly desire. At the heart of every moral wrong, every sin, every act of rebellion, is wishing God were dead to you. It’s as if you’re saying, “God, get out of my life once and for all so I can do what I want to do. I don’t want or need you telling me what to do!” Like the young son, God sees our sin as leaving him and instead choosing to live in unlovable opposition to him.
ACT OF FREE WILL
And then Jesus shocked these original hearers even more by telling them how the father responded. This insulted, humiliated, and embarrassed father calmly gives his son the money and lets him leave. The father didn’t force his son into subjection. He didn’t manipulate the wayward son or try to force him to comply. This father, who obviously symbolizes God in the story, knows that if he is to have a healthy relationship with his son, it must come from an act of his son’s own free will. The father wants the son to freely love him.
THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP
As the story continues, Jesus tells how the son squanders his money, falls on desperate times, finds himself starving to death, and finally comes to his senses when he’s face down in the pig pit eating slop. But again appearances are deceiving. Look at what this lost son says in verses 18-19…
18 I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, 19 and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’
That actually sounds pretty good right? It sounds like the son came to his senses? No, he didn’t. The son wanted to redefine the relationship from what it was supposed to be. He figures he’s good enough to be a hired hand, but not good enough to be the father’s son. He’s good enough for employment, food, and shelter, but not sonship! He doesn’t expect his father to fully and freely accept him as a son—not now, not after he messed up. He returns, not to be reconciled, but to find a bed, food, and a warm shower! But the father is saying, “No! This is not the relationship I want with you! You can’t earn my favor, my pardon, or my love. I give it freely. I only ask that you love me!” The father wanted a deep and lasting relationship. He was more than willing to give his son the rights and privileges of being his son if he would only turn and truly love him as his father. God doesn't settle for anything less than your first love for him!
There’s a secondary teaching in the story of the lost son. For those who are trying to love the unlovable, how do you do that in a Godly fashion? Pray about your NEXT STEP below.
NEXT STEP
The secondary lesson in the story of the Prodigal Son is how to love and forgive unlovable people. Here are a few insights Jesus reveals:
1. Sometimes God calls us to love people who cannot or will not love us in return. You can’t do this for long without God’s strength. Go to the Father often for your own refreshment and endurance. “And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.” (1 John 4:17)
2. Someone you love may be treating you the way the wayward son treated his father. And how does God respond? He doesn’t cajole, manipulate or compel a person to love him. Neither will you be successful doing this with the unlovable person in your life. Don’t be a taskmaster who tries to force or manipulate love. Demonstrate what healthy love looks like.
3. Give the unlovable person over to their sin. The father gave the Prodigal Son his inheritance and let him go. The unlovable person in your life may need to discover the path of pig slop and the consequences of their desires. Don’t enable! Let him or her fail and feel the pain of their choices.
4. Don’t give up. The father was in the daily posture of looking for his son to come back, to change.
5. Don’t settle! The wayward son was willing to settle for a relationship that was less than what it should have been. The father wanted full sonship and wouldn’t settle for anything less. If you seek healing in a relationship with an unlovable person, he or she must come to you under their own volition and desire to restore the relationship to what it is meant to be. Don’t settle for less.
6. If the unlovable person desires a true relationship, he or she will need your forgiveness. Give it freely as God has given his to you. (Free doesn’t mean cheap! God’s forgiveness came with the price of his Son’s death on a cross. Your forgiveness of a loved one is lined with blood, sweat, and tears!)
