{"id":4257,"date":"2017-10-22T09:00:53","date_gmt":"2017-10-22T14:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barbdahlgren.com\/?p=4257"},"modified":"2017-07-25T22:20:21","modified_gmt":"2017-07-26T03:20:21","slug":"choose-not-to-give-up-on-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/?p=4257","title":{"rendered":"Choose Not to Give Up on People"},"content":{"rendered":"

One More Year of Choices<\/em><\/p>\n

By Barbara Dahlgren<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"We received a lovely note from someone. She said, \u201cI have not forgotten about you or all the good advice you gave me. Please don\u2019t give up on me\u2026\u201d Those are powerful words: Please don\u2019t give up on me.<\/p>\n

Do we give up on people? God doesn\u2019t give up on us. We are a work in progress, just like everyone we meet. God doesn\u2019t look at what a mess we are, throw His hands up in the air, and say, \u201cWell, I give up!\u201d<\/p>\n

People are flawed, frustrating, and infuriating. People can be manipulative and judgmental. People can think the world revolves around them and their wants, their needs, and their desires. People can take the joy out of life by their negativity. People can be disrespectful and insincere. People can want us to give more, more, more while they give nothing. People can take us for granted. People don\u2019t have boundaries and infringe on ours. People can drain our energy and leave us limp.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, God ignores our request to change these people or relocate them far, far away from us. In fact, it\u2019s as if God looks beyond their irritating nature to see their worth. I guess God deals with others the same way He deals with us \u2013 with compassion, patience, encouragement, and love. Maybe that\u2019s what we should do. God loves these people and so should we. In order to do this, we need to ask God for wisdom, strength, and guidance in how to deal with them.<\/p>\n

Consider this\u2026 It\u2019s easy to love the lovable, but how we love people who are hard to love reveals a lot about us spiritually. Dealing with difficult people helps us grow spiritually, whether we want to or not. If we\u2019ve learned anything from God, we\u2019ve learned that everyone is redeemable.<\/p>\n

Now, there may be times we need to pull back from a relationship with difficult people for our own sanity. Or there may come a time when we are no longer able to work with someone profitably because of a personality conflict or disagreement about how a job should be done. That\u2019s what happened with Paul and Barnabas; so they agreed to go their separate ways. (Acts 15:36-40) However, that doesn\u2019t mean we ever give up on them. Instead, we place them in God\u2019s loving hands and continue to pray for them.<\/p>\n

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Suggestions for practicing this choice\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Remember, we are all God\u2019s work in progress. (Ephesians 2:10)<\/p>\n

Ask God for the ability to see beyond the surface and into a person\u2019s soul. Ask God to help you see what He sees.<\/p>\n

We all have problems. Ask God to help you remove the plank from your own eye. (Matthew 7:3-5)<\/p>\n

Have you ever thought that you might be the difficult person in someone else\u2019s life? Think about it!<\/p>\n

Never underestimate the power of prayer. It can change lives \u2013 including yours!<\/p>\n

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One More Year of Choices By Barbara Dahlgren We received a lovely note from someone. She said, \u201cI have not forgotten about you or all the good advice you gave me. Please don\u2019t give up on me\u2026\u201d Those are powerful … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}