And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. Matthew 5:40
Life is full of difficult people. They cut in front of you in traffic, put their trash on your property, accuse you of dishonesty, cut you no slack for being human, and seize upon every opportunity to do something to irritate or demean you. Some do it unconsciously; others do it deliberately and with malice. They return merchandise which is half worn out, asking for a refund because something doesn’t fit right or was defective. The list of what difficult people do to irritate you is endless.
So, what do you do? A lot of merchants play “Mr. Nice!” They know they are being ripped off, that the customer has taken advantage of them, yet they go along because they want folks to come back and buy something which you will keep.
Others choose to treat difficult people with kindness. When one family bought a small farm, their next door neighbor came over and said, “Hey, when you bought this place, you also bought a lawsuit cause your fence is on my property.” The new owner responded, “We always have good neighbors where we live and that’s what I’d like here, so have the fence moved, and send me the bill.” Taken aback by the man’s cooperative attitude, the hostile neighbor eventually became a friend. Sometimes you disarm the difficult person with unexpected kindness. In other cases though, your kindness is interpreted as weakness: it only leads to more difficulty.
What are your other options? You can respond to the difficult person, thinking, “Two people can play this game.” Remember the old adage, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?” But an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” leaves you both blind and toothless. Jesus knew the law, yet He said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31). When someone mistreats you, you can plot your revenge but it’s never sweet.
A far better response is first to try to understand the difficult person, then pray about the situation, asking God for wisdom in knowing how to deal with it. Then
confront the difficult person in your life. You can choose the time, the manner, and the place of confrontation. Jesus told us that we are to go to the difficult person and confront him or her in private. Before you confront, think through what you intend to say. Remember, you want to solve a problem, not escalate it. (See Matthew 18:15). Your attitude can defuse the potentially explosive issue. You can begin by saying, “I’ve got a problem which I’d like to discuss with you.” You can explain your feelings when Mr. or Miss Difficult treats you the way he or she does.
If the confrontation doesn’t eliminate the problem, you then have to ask yourself how important is winning this battle, really? Don’t let your emotions and hostilities back up. Let them go. In short, forgive the difficult person. Ask God to use that person to be a catalyst in your life and to use you to help change the life of the other person. Remember, you may well be the only genuine, authentic person who has ever graciously confronted him or her.
Someone once wrote to the USDA and complained that he couldn’t find a spray that would effectively kill the dandelions in his yard. He explained he had sprayed them, dug them, tried everything he’d ever heard of and he still had dandelions. The USDA agent replied, “Dear sir, if you have tried everything you have heard about to kill them and you still have them, you had better learn to love them.”
That’s true not only of dandelions but of difficult people as well.
Resource reading: Romans 12:9-21
