Are Some Friends God Has Blessed You with, Unloveable?

I read this question today and I love it.

"How do you love the friends the Lord has put in your life, even if he or she may not be so loveable?" (Heidi St. John)

I love it because I am passionate about people and relationships and this is a question that we, as Christ followers, need to ask ourselves regularly. A number of times, I've seen people avoid each other and justify it by saying things like "Some people just don't get along"  or  "As long as we're polite, that's good enough" and various things that show they don't want the trouble of truly loving the difficult people in their lives. I get it - it's hard. I have found myself willing to throw in the towel at times.

But, friends and family aren't relationships to be ignored or thrown away. God allows certain people in our lives, people HE loves immensely, to give us an opportunity to grow and learn from those that are different from us. Years ago I found that a relationship I thought couldn't thrive, turned out wonderful because I was willing to view the other person as God does (It wasn't just me - I know the other person was gracious as we worked to understand each other). It was actually quite easy to be friends when we had the mind set that God wants every relationship to bear the fruit of the spirit. As a result of our efforts, God has used us to be a great encouragement to each other over the years. He knew all along the support and friendship He was willing to provide each of us, but we could have missed out on it by choosing to believe we knew better than He who is worthy of our friendship.

Of course, we choose our friends many times throughout our lives, but sometimes there are people chosen for us. We all have people that are part of our lives that we didn't choose to be there - but, there they are. Isn't building a relationship with those people a perfect opportunity to honor God? It honors God because it brings unity in believers and families. It honors God, because we are more like Him when we choose to love.

Sometimes we make the choice to love the unlovable friends we have, just to be hit with rejection. Obviously, not everyone is ready or willing to make this same choice, maybe not even realizing that this is an area of our lives God wants to use.
This makes it hard and sometimes I feel like saying it's okay to give up on loving this unlovable friend, except that God continues to have them in my life and I believe He expects me to love them whether it is returned or not.
Relationships aren't just for our enjoyment, but for our growth. They are the best opportunity we have to become more like Christ.
I am learning that it takes a willingness to die to self when you know you need to show love to someone where it won't be appreciated or reciprocated. Because it's hard to die to self, I don't always choose love. Sometimes I choose to avoid, instead. Sometimes I choose to be frustrated or hurt. But, when I choose to show kindness in the difficult times, I know I am pleasing God. I am acting more like Him and that is what makes choosing to love worth it.

I would love to hear how you show love to your unlovable friends. What things do you do? What things do you refrain from doing?  You can write in the comment box, the fb comments or message me.
Here are some things that I purposely do:  

I pray for me. I ask the Lord for a willingness to value each and every relationship He has placed in my life and for strength to put myself aside and do whatever He asks of me. If I don't do this, I start to fear rejection, get prideful and justify why I don't need difficult people in my life, and basically, I'll act like me, instead of Him.

I pray for the unlovable. It's hard to be critical of someone when God starts to show you that person the way He sees them. It also gives me a stronger desire to see the relationship grow.

I try to be nice. I don't believe in being fake - in fact, I hate it when people are superficial (they are usually more obvious than they think) - but, I look for ways to do or say something  genuinely nice to that person.  If I can't do it sincerely, I wait until I can.  They may not appreciate it, and it may even annoy them, but at least I know I am choosing to trust that God put this person in my life for a reason and I'm actively working on loving. (Proverbs 25:21-22)

The final thing I try to do (notice I say 'try') is to 'Let go and let God'. As long as my heart is right toward honoring the relationships God put in my life, then I can leave the rest up to Him. God won't force someone to trust His choices for them, but He is the One who can change hearts. Although, they may never change in their actions toward me, I am changing with every act of obedience to the Lord, so I can be happy with that and let Him worry about the rest.

I know satan does not want unity and love among believers, so he is good at trying to prove that working at these relationships is unnecessary. He tries to prove why the unlovable aren't worthy of our efforts. I have to guard myself (with prayer and scripture) against these thoughts, because I don't want to be like him. I want to be like Christ, who values a relationship with me, even though I am a sinner that He could deem unlovable. I am so thankful for His friendship, and all the loveable and loving friends He has given me, and all the difficult ones as well, because these are the things that draw me closer to Him.

LIfe Unexpected

Life Unexpected. I decided that is going to be the name of my book.

Much of life is a surprise, isn't it? I can't even begin to list the expectations I had for life that did not work out as I thought. Sometimes that was a wonderful blessing. Other times that meant there were circumstances I didn't think I could bear.

In either case, the name of the Lord deserves praise. ( Ps.113:3)

Praising God has never been a problem when He has blessed me with undeserved gifts! And, I can say it's always been my goal when He's taken away things I treasure or believe I need. I have not always reached that goal, however. I wish I could say that I've chosen praise all the times I plead for answers instead, but I'm learning to do that more and more.

As I look ahead at my life, I'm wondering what expectations I'm still carrying. Do I expect to live a long life? Do I expect my kids or husband to live long lives? Do I expect we will never be jobless again? Or, to be financially secure? To always have a home? To keep all my limbs? To never be betrayed by people I trust? To always have freedom in our country? To have all my kids be college graduates? To avoid strife in my family?  I actually do expect these things and more - to a degree anyway. Clearly, I am still learning how to let go of my expectations.

I am not suggesting for a moment that creating expectations to live by is wrong. I expect my kids to live by the rules of our home, for example. What I have learned, though, is that people tend to expect things and then feel wronged when those things aren't fulfilled. At least, I sure do. When that happens, we forget to be thankful for all God has provided us. We think we deserve things that were never really promised to us. We forget our ultimate mission because we put our focus on ourselves.

Just one example I have of this is that I always believed I would have my family around. I knew there was a chance someone could die early, of course. After all, my first brother died before I was born and the other when I was 5, so I wasn't naïve to the possibility. It just never occurred to me that by the age of 43, I would only have one brother alive out of 6 and that my dad would be in the final stages of Alzheimer's disease.  I assumed they would always be around until we were all older, because that is generally the rule.
I don't think I should have contemplated who may be dying when I was younger, but I DO know that when they did die, I felt robbed.  I was shortchanged.  I deserved to have them around just like all my friends who have their siblings and get to continue to share holidays and special events with them, didn't I?

BUT, then I realized......I was never shortchanged at all. The truth was that I had been given the blessing of a large family.  I had been unaware that it would change so drastically, but it was still a gift - not a right that was taken from me.   I'm not exactly speaking of the concept of just being grateful for what we had even though lives were cut short, but the shift in vision that allows me to see that we didn't lose out at all. This was God's story for our lives and it was different than I thought, but we were incredibly blessed to have what we had. I much prefer having all those brothers for part of my life than for none of it.  In fact, for all I know, God could have extended their time with us because of our prayers.
That doesn't mean that I miss my loved ones any less. My heart hurts when I'm wanting them here, I grieve when it's obvious they are missing, especially when a major life event is happening. I don't say that so anyone will feel sorry for me, just to acknowledge that grief is part of life and I'm not denying that it's there.

God cleared what was a distorted view on my part and gave me new perspective. Maybe this is more of an internal thing on  my part, and maybe it's not a need most people face --  that of releasing their expectations. But, I did need it. I remember pleading with God to help me be happy for those around me that still had their whole families intact (to even be happy for those that weren't building relationships within their families & didn't seem to realize the blessing they could have), because I would feel jealous and like my close family deserved to be together more than those kinds of families. God answered my prayer with the realizations I've talked about here and has buried the temptation to become bitter under the ocean floor.

Surrendering my rights and expectations of everything in my life will be a battle I will fight until the day I die, I'm sure, but my daily prayer to God is this:  "I don't know what You are going to give or take away today (and it scares me a little). It may seem You are taking away things that I should have been able to count on (can I please count on keeping Tim for a regular life span since he's the last brother left? and for that matter, everyone else in the family?) ....but, You had the right to give me the life You did and I am surrendering my right to plan it, envision the future and think I deserve more. I just thank You for everything You have given me and will treasure all the blessings until my time with them is up."    

"Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him..." Job 13:15