Handling Difficult People: Combining Compassion with Space to Give Peace a Chance
They're a part of your life or your family's life, people that you have to or need to interact with on a semi or regular basis.
Season 7, Episode 33 · Handling Difficult People - Combining Compassion with Space to Give Peace a Chance
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The story behind the idea
They're a part of your life or your family's life, people that you have to or need to interact with on a semi or regular basis.
What stands out
Remember, you've already done some of the work to go, you know what, there's something wrong with me too, and I need to work on that. You look at them and you go, there's something wrong with them as well. It's a little bit like we say about bullies, all bullies are broken.
Why it matters
In a lot of cases with difficult people, you will not have that privilege or ability, but you can still take the time to think about them and try to enter into another person's emotional experience as if it were your own. When dealing with challenging people, try to understand why they act like they do by putting yourself in their shoes.
A faithful way forward
This is where we not only want to see people like Jesus does and feel for them like Jesus does and sympathize like he does, we want to have compassion like he does. In several New Testament gospel passages, that attribute, compassion, is assigned to Jesus when he is engaging with hurting or difficult people. Of course, that's what this is all about in terms of motivation.
Put it into practice
If you and I ever have a fight, like I'm gonna text you every two weeks going, man, hope your day's going well, love you, and it's just gonna annoy you to death. Like, let's say it was you and me and we'd really hit a rough spot.
Take the idea with you.
- 01What idea from this study most needs my attention right now?
- 02Where does this challenge the way I am currently thinking or living?
- 03What is one faithful step I can take this week?
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The original episode player is available near the top of this article, so you can listen without leaving the page.