Table of Contents
“This is all that I have learned: God made us plain and simple, but we have made ourselves very complicated.” (Ecclesiastes 7:29).
Who Are Difficult People?
It is a matter of choice who you want to become in life. But it is unfortunate that most people choose to become Difficult People in the way they choose to act For instance, they may choose to be argumentative, aggressive, selfish, disrespectful, stupid, unintelligent, or simply rude. Difficult people know how to rub you in the wrong way and stir up trouble.
Any person can choose to be a difficult person, ranging from an angry or jealous friend, relative, co-worker, neighbor, or even an enemy. You will encounter these kinds of people everywhere, ranging from your family, workspace, spiritual spaces like churches, and even social spaces.
How Can You Identify These Difficult People?
According to 2 Timothy 3:1–4, “Remember that there will be difficult times in the last days. People will be selfish, greedy, boastful, and conceited; they will be insulting, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, and irreligious; they will be unkind, merciless, slanderers, violent, and fierce; they will hate the good; they will be treacherous, reckless, and swollen with pride; they will love pleasure rather than God;”
In our modern-day societies, these people tend to manipulate other people through:
- Yelling (belittling you or insulting others)
- Playing victim.
- Sulking (Bad-tempered)
- Threatening others
- No one feels comfortable around them.
- Get offended frequently and easily.
- Ignore other people’s opinions (some are right and others wrong)
- Difficult people second-guess everything you say or do
- Selfish (they only think about themselves)
- Difficult people hurt you and then make you feel that it’s your fault.
- Difficult people live a double lifestyle, both in private and in public.
- Difficult people leave you out of important conversations necessary for you.
Examples of Difficult People In The Bible.
- David dealing with his older brother Eliab (1 Samuel 17:28–29)
- David dealing with King Saul. (1 Samuel 18:8–29)
- Elisha dealing with the 42 rude boys (2 Kings 2:23–25)
- Moses dealing with Pharaoh (Exodus 14:14)
- King David deals with Nabal (1 Samuel 25:3–44)
David was protecting Nabal’s property, and he was good to him but Nabal was not, because one day David sent his men to go and get food from Nabal but he refused and even disrespected David. Therefore, David was about to fight a battle he was not supposed to fight in the first place (1 Samuel 25:8–35)
How Do You Deal With Difficult People?
Are we always hostile, rude, mean, selfish, impatient, and uncaring? No, but we all have the seeds of all such attitudes in our hearts (Matthew 15:19; Jeremiah 17:9). Therefore, the first step in helping us deal with difficult people is understanding that we are not better than such people by nature (Ephesians 2:1–3).
How we handle these difficult people will determine how far we go in life, If you operate at their level, you will be stalked at their level, and this will keep God from blessing you. The Bible tells us, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21). Always remember that two wrongs don’t make a right, in short, you can’t get far trying to fix others who have wronged you; instead, you end up fixing yourself.
Whenever a difficult person crosses your path, God is saying to you, Show me how much you have matured, and God is also trying to see whether he can trust you to be a keeper of your weak brother if he entrusted him to you at any level and capacity. Let us not be like cain in Genesis 4:9, “Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” He wasn’t willing to serve others expect for himself.
One thing I know is that you can’t control how everyone treats you but you can control how you respond to them. For instance, when someone is rude or ungrateful, you don’t have to get upset; instead, the Bible says in the book of
Matthew 5:11–12 says, “Happy are you when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of evil lies against you because you are my followers. Be happy and glad, for a great reward is kept for you in heaven. This is how the prophets who lived before you were persecuted.”
Remember, this difficult person might not change, but you can change. If you let difficult people know which buttons to press to make you react in a certain way, then they will destroy you. Don’t give anyone the keys to your happiness. Instead, if you had given them those keys, take them back quickly.
Ephesians 4:26, says ” If you become angry, do not let your anger lead you into sin, and do not stay angry all day. Don’t give the Devil a chance.”
Brethren, take control of your life and don’t let events or circumstances control you. Remember, other people are your mirror, so if you easily pick up certain issues in other people, it means that you have not dealt with this issue yourself.
Don’t let their negativity rub on you, by taking the bait they throw at you, Have you ever come across a very negative person, and after a while of talking at the level of that person, he feels better and changes his demeanor? It means that you have to allow this person to steal your good vibe. Many difficult people feed on other people’s energy to survive because they are dead from the inside.
For instance, we see in 1 Samuel 16:23, “From then on, whenever the evil spirit sent by God came on Saul, David would get his harp and play it. The evil spirit would leave, and Saul would feel better and be all right again.”
These people might even be your boss or someone else who gives credit to others for what you have done. Always remember that according to 1 Peter 3:9, “Do not pay back evil with evil or cursing with cursing; instead, pay back with a blessing, because a blessing is what God promised to give you when he called you.”
As good Christians, according to Proverbs 25:21-22, “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.”
Don’t please your flesh; instead, please God. God knows how to deal with them for you and make them think differently about you.
Brethren, as believers, we are made to scale unscalable mountains, cross red seas, and even kill giants. So, we shouldn’t allow our egos to take over and take this away from us. So, stay at your level, and you won’t suffer harm.
For instance, anytime an eagle invades the space of some other birds, like mockingbirds, hummingbirds, and even crows,. They will try to attack it and even chase it, but what the eagle does is that it doesn’t chase back or attack; instead, it tries to leave that level and go to its level high in the sky, and by doing this, these other birds give up the chase because they are unfamiliar with these high altitudes. The eagle, in short, takes the fight to a new level where it’s in control.
So, like these eagles, we are made to operate at another level where God is the King, and he rules. So quit going below your level. So like the eagle, run away from these little things that make you leave your position as a king, according to 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 5:10. Our time is too valuable to waste it on the wrong people or on the wrong things. We should use that time and energy to do great things.
There will always be people who will never understand you and, as a result, will try to hinder you from progressing towards your goal. Remember that these people never chose you or appointed you to what you are doing or are made to do. So why do you make them feel like they are your boss while they are not.
We see a very good case in point whereby, according to 1 Samuel 17:25-30, ,we see Goliath the giant had been mocking the children of Israel, and this made the King of Israel very angry to the point that he offered to give his daughter’s hand in marriage to anyone who kills this giant. So on hearing this, David was willing to fight this giant, but then his oldest brother Eliab kept on trying to stop him by trying to remind him that he shouldn’t be there because he was an untrained farm boy with no experience whatsoever to fight this giant. But we see that David ignored him and focused on the price rather than the distractor.
David refused to engage his brother and saved that energy to fight the right battle, which has a price. David understood from an earlier age which battles to fight, and which do not fight. In short, he was in control when it came to choosing his battles. No wonder he even knew them very well because they were not many but significant in his life (1 Samuel 17:34-37 ), and all of them brought him a price, and without the price being determined before the battle, David never undertook that battle.
According to 1 Samuel 17:45-46, like David, if you let God fight for you, then you will always have victories and you will go far in life. Difficult people are not the problem, but their behavior is.
Brethren You can’t get rid of these difficult people, but you can choose to ignore them and keep going , aiming at the price. Brethren, always remember that not everyone will accept you no matter what you do, even Jesus wasn’t accepted in his hometown, and no wonder Jesus said in the book of Mark 6:4, “Jesus said to them, “Prophets are respected everywhere except in their own hometown and by their relatives and their family.”
So, you can see that if Jesus was banking on the acceptance of his relatives and friends and what they would say or not , then this gospel would not reach us because he would have been discouraged and then given up.
You have a choice about whether you want to be happy and whether you want to leave a mark in this world or not, so don’t let people make that choice for you. Simply because people have their issues, they shouldn’t affect you.
Jesus left us with this advice when it comes to dealing with difficult people, “Listen! I am sending you out just like sheep to a pack of wolves. You must be as cautious (cunning or wise) as snakes and as gentle (innocent or harmless) as doves.” (Matthew 10:16).
Brethren, Make up your mind that you will not let one negative comment, made by one disrespectful person, ruin your life or make you change your cause for the worse! Remember that you were created for a greater purpose, and that purpose can’t be defined by just one moment. Everybody has the power to choose who and what they want to become!
Remember, the road leading to your destiny is full of difficult people, and if you can avoid them or even overcome them, then the price is yours. Always remember that difficult people are the ones who teach us the most important lessons. Difficult people are like sandpaper; they may scratch and irritate you, but in the end, you are polished and smooth
But choose how you deal with these difficult people before they deal with you!
Pastor Nathaniel.
Posts That May Interest You:
Fear of Failure: 20 Powerful Prayers Overcome It Now – 2024 (mtmchurch.org)
