Do you have relationships in your life that are difficult to navigate?
What if you could make them less difficult?
ALL of us have at least one relationship in our lives that is difficult to navigate.
The level and type of difficulty will vary between each of us, but
one thing we have in common is that we wish we DIDN’T have them!
Let’s begin to think about difficult relationships from a new perspective!
Start to think of a difficult relationship as an opportunity to be refined.
Begin to see it as an opportunity to let God’s power work through you
to show His love to everyone that is watching!
You must stop finding offense around every corner. You must stop fighting back.
Why?
Because the way you react to difficult relationships will impact
the extent to which God can use you!
You CAN face difficult relationships with confidence and grace.
In fact, you can stop the difficult relationship in its tracks… NOW!
HERE IS HOW
1. Remember that the person is loved by God
Did you just groan a little bit? If you did, you aren’t alone. We don’t like to think about how much God loves someone we don’t like, but… it is the truth.
WE ARE ALL LOVED BY THE SAME GOD!!!
God loves you and He loves that person too.
He doesn’t just love them a little, He loves them a lot!
He died on the cross for them JUST like He did you!
In the moments you are tempted to react unkindly to the someone,
instead remember that God loves that person so deeply that He is
keeping track of the hairs on their head.
Ask God to help you see that person the way He sees them!
Ask God to help you hear what He is whispering to their heart.
Ask for eyes to see how God is working in their life.
If you see people the way God sees them, you will forever be changed
and your relationship with that person will be too- for the better!
2. Go into an interaction prayed up and prepared
Don’t wait to be IN the moment to start asking God for help! It’s not necessarily too late,
but it is much more effective if you proactively ask God for help
BEFORE you are in IMMEADIATE need of it!
Start praying days in advance! This is also a good time to make sure you are reading the Bible. God will speak to you through His word about your unique situation.
Ask God to guard your heart against offense. The prayer I pray goes something like this: “Please put a shield around my heart so that any hurtful arrow thrown at it will bounce off instead of sticking and causing hurt feelings.”
Put the hurt you have, along with the concern you have over the impending get together,
where it belongs- at the feet of Jesus. When you do this you are relinquishing the control seat to the one that should ALWAYS be the driver- God!
Ask God to fill you with His love to overflowing so that you can show love to the person
in the difficult relationship.
Pray blessings for the person. If you do this at least once a week for a year then you are going to feel completely different about the relationship this time next year!
3. Clean up your thoughts and narrative about the person and also about yourself
What goes on in your mind has a lot to do with how you act or react to life.
The story you tell yourself plays an active role in the story you really do end up living out!
This can be for the good or the bad!
We tend to add a lot of “opinion” and “read between the lines” to conversations and encounters within a difficult relationship.
Separate the actual fact from what you may have added to the story line.
Take a moment to really think about what ACTULLY happened.
Ask God to reveal parts of the story that you may have embellished over time,
whether consciously or unconsciously.
Over time we can start to believe some of the things that people say about us concerning that difficult relationship. A narrative develops based on past experiences or indictments. Some examples may be things like “you are an angry person”, “you are selfish”, or “you do not belong”. There are a host of other possible narratives.
Replace those narratives with a positive narrative.
Here are some examples:
“ I am angry” becomes “ I am a peacekeeper”.
“I am selfish” becomes “I am generous”.
“I am easily offended” becomes “I show grace”.
Know who you are to God and hold on to that! It truly doesn’t matter who you are to
ANYONE else when you choose to stand firmly in who GOD knows you are
and how HE sees you.
You will be amazed at how much the narrative of a difficult relationship can change
simply by you changing YOUR narrative!
4. Focus on the positives
There are positives in EVERY situation!
It won’t be easy to see the positives. It will be tempting to avoid being around that person,
but don’t let that difficult relationship rob you from the good that CAN be found.
Ask God to help you see the good and then choose to focus ONLY on that.
What you choose to focus on is what you will see the most of- so choose the good!
5. Choose to forgive
Remember your children are learning from you and they will follow your lead.
If you expect your children to forgive you need to expect the same thing from yourself!
Why forgive? The Bible says to “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:32
When we don’t forgive we are only hurting ourselves.
Unforgiveness in your heart quickly turns to bitterness. Bitterness has DEEP roots and
will completely change your outlook on life and your reaction to situations.
There will be times you need to have a conversation about forgiveness with the actual person, but many times forgiveness is something that is done in your heart
and then your actions do the talking.
One way to show you have forgiven someone is to be unexpectedly kind to them or generous! Maybe you need to show up with a gift card to their favorite coffee shop
or other place they enjoy!
There is a chance that they won’t accept your forgiveness.
Choose to not to take further offense to that.
They may be caught off guard and need to process. Keep the forgiveness on the table.
Keep being nice. Keep doing your part to repair the relationship, while leaving the outcome in God’s hands. Gods heart is always for reconciliation. He is working behind the scenes
in the other person’s heart that you can’t see.
6. Let God do the dirty work for you
Rest in the fact that if there is something to be dealt with in that person
then God will be the one taking care of it- for you.
When someone wrongs you do NOT respond and do NOT get offensive.
Silently pray in your head for God to convict them of how they hurt you.
Stop doing the work of the Holy Spirit by pointing out everything done against you.
I have made this mistake and am still dealing with the repurcussions.
I couldn’t see past my own hurt at that moment.
I couldn’t see past they way I had been wronged and judged.
I couldn’t see past how “right” I was.
I let my wounds do the talking, but wounds are never good conversationalists.
So get out of the way and usher the Holy Spirit in!
It is important to learn how to handle difficult relationships because your kids are watching you and imitating you. They are going to have difficult relationships in their life too- in fact, they probably already do. As they see you handle difficult relationships with grace and covering that person in God’s love they are going to be empowered themselves to do the same thing when they face those situations!
This is more about asking God to transform YOU than you asking God to transform THEM!
You are the one you can change and control, so focus on that!
❤️-Tiffany
My Prayer for You:
Dear Lord, you see the mom reading this.
You are intimately aware of the details of her difficult relationships.
May YOUR love fill her up and empower her to love them.
Let her see them the way YOU see them.
Give her genuine compassion.
Let her see this difficult relationship as an opportunity to show
YOUR grace, YOUR light, and YOUR power to others.
I pray for a miracle of restored relationships-
to the point that one day they will laugh about “how it used to be”.
Prayers change the outcome of situations and that is why we come to you today,
fully believing that you are already working out a miracle on her behalf.
Amen
