I'm a person. You're a person. We're all people. Yay for the plural of person - people! Because without other people, the world can sure be a lonely place. People can have the most amazing impact on our lives, can't they? They make us smile. They listen when we need an ear. They love us. They boost our self-esteem and our egos. They make our hearts feel full and our insides feel warm and fuzzy. They work with us. They build us up. They take pressure off of us. They keep us employed. They give us raises and promotions. They buy us stuff. They spend time with us. They teach us. They talk to us. They give us advice. And the little people are my favorites......I love holding a sweet-smelling newborn or hearing children's laughter and especially getting hugs from my little ones. People are great! Gotta love the people!
And then, just like popping a balloon, one minute you have that nice, full, high-in-the-sky feeling and then BAM! Where'd all the nice people go?? You know.....the nice, uncomplicated people who don't make your hair frizz at the ends and the veins in your temple pop out. Is there a stockroom somewhere just full of these limited warranty creatures? They come out nice and shiny and sweet. They say everything you want to hear. They do all the right things. They make you feel so good about yourself. And then one day you take the nice, uncomplicated model out and it starts malfunctioning. All of a sudden the naiive, trusting side of you is under attack from some psychotically possessed toy who no longer sounds like the toy you played with yesterday.
People may be awesome sometimes, but they can absolutely tear you apart too. People lie. They steal things and never give them back. They stab you in the back. They crush you with rejection. Chew you up and spit you out. Use you. Abuse you. Stomp on your feelings. Disrespect you. Hurt you. Fire you. Abandon you. Curse you. And ignore you completely. They can shatter every dream you've ever had - whether it was owning your first home to finishing your college degree to having a family. They can make you feel smaller than a grain of sand on the endless beach of time. They insult you. They talk about you behind your back. They break your heart and don't even apologize for it.People totally suck! Yeah! Who needs people right? When you're having one of those days or one of those weeks or, heck, even one of those decades, it sounds pretty great to wrap all those people up in a box and send them to the moon with a "Do Not Return to Sender" stamp.
But you wanna hear a cold hard truth?
You're a people too. And you are just as deserving as they are of being in a box with a one-way ticket to the moon.
I'm struggling with this truth myself at the moment. I was working with my Bible one evening. Everything was nice and calm. Zero problems on my mind. I was loving Jesus and being loved on by Jesus. It was all good. I closed my eyes, prayed that God would direct me to a Bible verse that would imprint itself on my heart and soul and take root in my life, and opened up the Bible to a random spot. With my eyes still closed, I pointed my finger to a random verse and this is what I got:
"Let not your heart be troubled. Neither let it be afraid." John 14:27
(Let me just add this little tidbit - do not randomly open your Bible to a verse, asking for God's direction, if you do NOT mean it. He loves stuff like this. It's like a mini-game of Tetris for Him.)
So I said, "Okay God. Sure. Absolutely. Sounds great." Didn't know what it meant at that moment or how it was going to personally affect me, but I'll take whatever He gives me. Within the next few hours, I was waist-deep in people drama that just seemed limitless. (I actually had to stay off of Facebook and stop checking my email because the drama was getting up to my neck and I can't swim in the seas of drama.) And I was feeling hurt and rejected and angry to the point I wanted to throw something. And even though I had just read this verse from God and had it in the fore-front of my mind, right where God knew I'd need it to be, I started trying to muck my way through it without relying on His wisdom. And the deeper I felt myself getting, the more God kept pulling me back and chaining me down to that verse like, "Hello! Did you not get the message? I gave you perfectly good guidance and direction here. Why are you getting all worked up? Open your eyes and ears and get a grip on what I told you!"
So after that ordeal, I will now say this to you: People are not perfect. They are all that bad stuff you read above. They're quirky and crazy and sometimes they're hurtful and mean too. Sometimes they don't realize it. Sometimes they do. With some people it feels like they just intentionally seek ways to make life more miserable or complicated for others. And some people will make you look up to Heaven and go, "Seriously God? You have a warped sense of humor sometimes, you know that?" But with all the drama and hurt that comes with them "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
When people hurt us in church, we often hold it against the church or against God. "Well I'm not going there because those girls gave me a dirty look." "I'm not going to church there because they didn't invite me to their Bible study." "I'm not going to church there because they talk about people behind their backs." "Christians are such hypocrites. They go to church and act all holy and then they come out and treat everyone like crap as soon as service is over. Why would I want to be a part of that?" Guess what? They are people. Imperfect sinful people. "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
When people hurt our feelings or don't act the way we think they should, we get our panties in a twist and act ugly. Your mother-in-law hates you. Your own mother doesn't speak to you unless it's to hurt you. Your father gambled away your college fund. Your kids have entered a rebellious phase and you're pretty sure they've started putting Pine-Sol in your coffee. Your husband is oblivious to the fact that you're in the same room, much less desiring his affection and attention. Your boss has a stack of pink slips in his office that he's just dying to hand out when 5 o'clock rolls around. "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
Even your favorite people will let you down. There will come a day when they will argue with you. There will come a day when your favorite person isn't there when you need them to be. There will come a day when something they do hurts you to the core and you don't think you could ever forgive them. But even your favorite people are still people. "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."You're a people. They're a people. Don't let the petty insults and hurts of today tear you up on the inside. Get a grip on the hand of God and consider for a moment that there are reasons people are the way they are. Everyone has a past and a story for why they do the things they do - how do you know what their life has been like or what kind of day they've had? In dealing with my own people dramas, I have come to realize that if you can remove yourself from feeling personally offended or angry, you will often find a very sad story behind a person's not-nice actions. And often these sad stories reverse the feelings of "How am I supposed to deal with this person?" to "Lord, my heart hurts for this person."
And in EVERY interaction with people, whether they're the people you want to hug or the people you want to run over with the car, remember that you're a person too. You are just as guilty and just as irritating and just as horrible (and sometimes more so, even if you don't want to admit it) - "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Put your pedestal back in the closet and stand among the ranks of the rest of the world. None of us can escape the pure insanity that makes us a collective group known as "people." None of us will ever be perfect. We will always fall short. There is only One who is perfect and reliable and consistent. The sooner we come to grips with that and allow Him to be our fulfilling factor, the sooner we can start living the blessed life God has planned for us.
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Side note:
Dealing with people is part of life and can totally suck sometimes. But being a Christian does not mean you have to just lie down like a rug and let the world walk all over you. There is a time and place for everything. There is a time and place for servitude and there is a time and place to put your foot down (Even Jesus threw a righteous hissy fit in the temple). There is nothing wrong with a courteous yet strongly-worded letter to someone letting them know they've offended you. Nor is there anything wrong with sitting down and telling someone that their actions have hurt you somehow. But keep these two things in mind: 1.) God can see what you're writing and saying too. So if the God-conscience is going off while you write it or say it, hit the backspace button and dig down deep to find a nicer way to say whatever needs to be said. 2.) When they give you a similarly strongly worded response, swallow your pride and remember you have people issues to deal with too.
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