The gift of difficult people

In our community of faith there are "difficult people." I think you know who I am talking about: People who are emotionally high-maintenance, always seem to draw attention to themselves, create more problems than benefits and are socially inept without the ability to carry a normal, decent, human conversation. It's awkward. It's emotionally draining. It's out of control, at times. It's not enjoyable for anyone, including myself.

We also have a few with physical disabilities that need extra attention getting in and out of the building. There are a few with autism, who comment publicly on topics that are taboo or who comment on things completely off-topic or say things just make people feel uncomfortable. We, at Pierced, are no exception. Every community of faith (or I should say, every community) has "difficult" poeple. So much of my emotional energy seems to be directed (and drained) with these individuals.

I hate to admit this, but over the past several months I've complained to God about these people. God, why do they have to bother us? Why can't them go to some other faith community? Why do they have to go here? Ministry would be so much easier if they were elsewhere?

As you can note, I have been utterly embarrassed for such selfish thoughts and apathetic -- even hard-hearted -- prayers. It reeks of arrogance, I know. Over the past several months God has placed an orange "Under Construction" sign in front of my heart, veering traffic away with orange cones so that he can concentrate on fixing the problem.

God has showed me over the past several months the amount of difficult people that Jesus hung out with: lepers and death girls and Samaritans and tax collectors. As if they weren't difficult enough, he couldn't get the Pharisaical flees to stop circling his head, no matter how many times he tried to shew them away. Talk about difficult. They were hard-hearted and had enough religious knowledge to be extremely dangerous.

And I think I deal with difficult people? This is nothing compared to the limited 33 years of life that our Master spent on this earth trying to help and heal and bring hope to a lost world.

It's been a supernatural construction project that, I believe, has brought me out on the other side. It's interesting: when I get involved in conversations with difficult people -- times when it feels like I'm pulling teeth just to ask how somebody's week was or I have to sit down with a guy for the ninth time and tell him that his interaction with other women at Pierced is making them feel awkward and he needs to stop -- I find my heart is no longer complaining. While I wouldn't say I would enjoy these conversations nor do I desire to get into them, I do find my heart saying, God, what do you want me to learn from this situation? or God, help me to show love practically to this person that may not have felt love very much this week or What can I do to help this person see a bit more of you right now?

It's not been easy, but it is refeshingly amazing: when I have a teachable spirit and willingness to see these individuals as a gift and not a problem God seems to bless the situation. It's incredible the amount of spiritual lessons God teaches me through these difficult people interactions. And I don't find it surprising, but I do find the gospel ironic: I learn and grow and am stretched more through my interactions with the difficult than I am with those who are "easy" or like me or require no extra effort to love. Our community is growing in love as we reach out and be proactive with the difficult. We're growing more in our response to the awkwardness of a poorly placed comment by the difficult during our corporate sharing time after the teaching than we are when people clearly and succinctly make some profound comment on the text.

Maybe Pierced gets it much more than I do and are further along in the curriculum of this lesson than I am.

But what God has finally taught me through these circumstances is this: difficult people are a gift, not a curse.

Thank you, God, for the gift of difficult people in our midst.

Comments

[Todd]

Amen to that. I worry about churches that only have "perfect" or "easy" people. How awesome would it be if every church was a representative slice of the community? Then we could know it is Truth that is attracting/detracting us, rather than social mores and classes.

[martha]

that's almost exactly what I've been thinking lately and voiced to my RA's the other night - my reaction to difficult people is to wish they would transfer schools or at least move to another dorm. how arrogant is that? "Lord, if You could just surround me with people I like, that would make this a whole lot easier."
growth doesn't happen when the way is easy or when things are comfortable. Rather, "Lord, if you could give me Your like for the people You've surrounded me with."

[michael lee]

I have this same frustration with some of my students. I teach at a University here in Los Angeles, and it seems like the 5 or 10% of my students who are the most emotionally unbalanced, or otherwise socially hindered, take up a significant majority of my time.

It's awful, but I frequently find myself making excuses to distance myself from those students, so that I can focus more of my attention on the 200 others who are there too. My TA and Lab Techs bear the brunt of that, as I tend to stick them with helping the more difficult people.

[DougG]

JR,

Sometimes I think others have viewed me as difficult and, you know, they were never honest or mocked or gossiped ... valued/validated vs abandoned/ignored? ... In our Cgroup this week, we discussed Jesus meeting every person right where they were at with Grace.

As much as it is humanly possible and with prayer, I will never treat anyone like I feel I have been treated.

Regards, Doug

[J.R.]

I've been thinking: we're all difficult in the eyes of God. Shouldn't we be glad that God sent his only Son to deal with the mess that we difficult people created in the first place? Wouldn't it just have been easier for God to deal with the other two members of the Trinity and his angels (probably the only non-difficult ones in the universe) instead of deal with us and our difficult sin?

Just a thought...