Learning to Love People, Part 2

March 20, 2011

Led by Bob Jamison, President and CEO of Family Guidance, Inc.

Love is God’s essential nature.

It’s easier to love someone when they reciprocate.  Notice that God’s love for us does not depend on our reciprocation.

Loving another person can be difficult.  What are some ‘love busters’?

Love Busters

1.  Our natural self-first instinct. 

Our tendency to think “but what about me!?” blocks our ability to love the other.

2.  People who are hard to love

Sometimes what makes this happen is that you are not satisfied with their response to you (back to #1).  Or perhaps you do not have any relationship with that person.  Try to get to know the other and look for some aspect of the image of God.  But your instinct is to run away from that person. 

We also tend to think that we will begin acting in a loving way as soon as we start having loving feelings toward the other.  In fact it is the other way around!  C.S. Lewis said, “Act as if you love your neighbor.”

3. When you take others for granted

4.  When someone needs to be confronted

“Speak the truth in love.”  Steps to take when you think you need to confront someone:

a.  Examine you own motives before confronting.  Make sure it is not really a case of #1 above (your self-first instinct).

b. Plan your presentation ahead of time.

c.  Say what you need to say with humility and gentleness.

d. Make sure that your motive is clear to the other person.

e. Know that it is risky – the other might reject you.

Class members offered these thoughts:

Another love buster is complacency – it’s often only in a crisis that we learn that we can love each other.  But why wait for a crisis?!

When you find yourself gossiping it’s a sign that you ought to be speaking directly to the person you are gossiping about.

Book – A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.  By Ishmael Beah.  The story of one of many children who were brainwashed so that they would be able to shoot to kill, and were used as soldiers. The book is the story of the self-sacrificial love that it took to rehabilitate this child.