I liked her the very first time I met her. Our elderly Airbnb host has become a dear friend since I first rented a room from her years ago. But I don’t like everyone. And I know everyone doesn’t like me.
I started May with hopes of writing about how “liking you like you” (see my JulieSandersOnline Facebook page if you do FB) means “I like you like you are.” But as I pondered and prayed over that idea, I realized being human means we don’t like everyone. In fact, we live in a time when people like each other less and less. There’s a lot not to like.
Reflecting on May, I can make a list of people I don’t like. Sometimes the daily news plays like a list of people it’s justifiable not to like. One unlikable individual has the power to hurt a lot of people, and no one likes that.
If you don’t like people and people don’t like you, you are likely to end up alone. To overcome that isolation, we actually don’t have to like everyone. Isn’t that good news?
There is a secret to overcoming the loneliness that grows out of not liking people.
I am loved.
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1a)
What a mystery — that in my unloveable condition, where I’m not easy to even like, God loves me. It’s a great love. The greatest love. The love that’s powerful enough to take my instinct to withhold love from others and transform that default.
Because I am lavished with affection like this, I can not only live in a world of unlikeable people, I can love people in it. That’s better than liking.
I am called to love others.
“For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.” (1 John 3:11)
No, we aren’t called to love all the things “others” do. God doesn’t love all the things we do, because so much we do goes against Who He is. But since people are stamped with the image of God, we can love one another.
I don’t have to be liked to be loved.
There will be haters –
“Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.” (1 John 3:13-14)
There will be haters – but I shouldn’t be one of them. God can help me to love my list of unlikeable people. He can take over my tendency to label others internally, putting His better label on them. “Loved by God.”
I have to love unlikeable people.
“Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. ” (1 John 2:9-10)
I know it’s true. I’m not always like-able. I say Christ lives in me, so his light is in me. But sometimes my dark side comes out. And there’s nothing to like about that! If I claim to be full of light, I can’t settle for disdaining people – even unlikeable people. I have to move from disliking to loving, from living dark to living light.
I have to love in my actions.
“Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18)
Oh the destruction brought on by unlovable actions. The lives taken, changed, and damaged. Wars, school shootings, arguments — I more than don’t like it; I hate it. God hates it.
When hate and ambition and pride drive actions, the absence of love creates only pain. Descriptions and images take hold of us deep inside, and we feel sick deep in the back of our stomachs. Gutteral grief reminds us that a total absence of love leads to overwhelming loss. How do we keep loving in the face of that?
I can love someone I don’t like.
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ” (1 John 4:7-11)
Love is sourced in God. He showed the greatest expression of loving when He sent His one and only Son for us to live through him. Since He loved us first, we can love others we don’t like. We can pray for people who would make us cringe over coffee. Miraculously, we can speak peacefully about those who undermine peace. Really, we can love unlikeable people.
“We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.” (1 John 4:19-21)
Ultimately, not everyone is like my favorite Airbnb host. There’s a lot not to like in the world. There are a lot of unlikeable people in the world. Maybe you know one. Maybe they’re in your family. They could live next door. Or they might be in your church. Maybe they’re a Facebook friend. They’re often in the news. Sadly, they’re out there and they’re in here. But loving trumps liking.
May the God who loves us help us love unlikeable people.
5 Steps to take with Unlikeable People
- Tell God you don’t like ____.
- Ask God to change your dislike to love for _____.
- When you feel a wave of dislike, add, “But I will love ___ because God loves me.”
- Pray for _____ to know God loves them and to learn to love like He does.
- Look for a way to take one loving action for ___.
