Foundations, May 17, 2009

Responding to Difficult People, May 17, 2009

When Pastor Tim shared that he feared that more and more followers of Jesus were not living transformed lives, what were your thoughts?


In what areas of your life have you/are you experiencing transformation?


In what areas do you desperately need transformation?


Romans 12-14 deal with such tough life issues that only those whose lives are being transformed will be able to embrace the principles shared.
Read Romans 12:9-21 several times and in several translations/paraphrases if possible (biblegateway.com has 15-20 translations/paraphrases you can read on-line). What recurring themes do you see?


It seems to me (Pastor Tim) that we have three basic approaches to choose from when dealing with the difficult people in our lives: Self-Protection/Preservation Centered, Other-People (problem) Centered, God-Centered.
When dealing with the problem person in your life, what spills out of you when you are self-protection driven, other-person driven, or God-centered driven?


What consumes your thinking when you are embracing each of the three listed?


How is forgiveness extended (or withheld) when you are embracing each of the three?


What does communication look like as you embrace the three different approaches?


The beauty of dealing with problem people in our lives is that it reveals what is driving us?


I can unequivocally say that unless you and I are consistently giving Christ control of our lives, and asking Him to transform us from the inside out, we will never be able to deal with the difficult people in a healthy manner. We don't need God to remove the difficult people in our lives (difficult people are like rabbits, they keep reproducing and showing up), we need a healthy way to deal with them.

Transformation is best described in Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of Romans 12:1-2
Romans 12:1-2 (Msg) So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life-your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life-and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.
Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.