SoulFit: How to Love Difficult People

We talk about how to love difficult people without losing who we are, and why biblical love includes wisdom and boundaries. We unpack the difference between helping and rescuing so we can protect our peace and still show up with real joy. 

• love often gets confused with always saying yes 
• the difference between carrying a burden and carrying someone’s load (Galatians 6:2–5) 
• encouraging people without rescuing them 
• allowing growth through choices and consequences 
• Jesus as a model for solitude and healthy boundaries (Mark 1:35–38) 
• loving everyone while trusting wisely 
• how boundaries prevent enabling, resentment, and burnout 
• forgiveness as release without automatic reconciliation or restored trust 
• asking whether our yes comes from God or guilt 

Think about this week: am I saying yes because God is leading me or because I feel guilty? 
Look forward to seeing you right here next time on Soulfin. 

https://aarondegler.com/

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to SoulFit. Thank you for taking time to join us. If this is your first time to join us, welcome. Each week we just join our live call as I share a message from the Word. Kind of really how do we take the Word, the Bible, those things in the Bible, and how do we make and make it applicable to our everyday life? And that is what we try to do here on Soul Fit each week. We make your soul as fit as we can, as we do your physical and mental uh fitness as well. So again, thanks for joining us. Let's join our live call.

When Love Means Saying Yes

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Many times all of us have people in our lives that we love, from friends to family, all kinds of people. And a lot of times we might view love as always saying yes. Maybe it is we fix problems, a problem solver. A lot of times we might think of our kids when they come to us and we want to solve all their problems, and that's what love is. Taking all of their, like really, when our kids were little, or even grandkids, if they fall, what do we do? Because we love them. Oh my goodness, are you okay? You you know, we grab them up, we brush them off. Sometimes it's love means being available, being available for friends, for spouses, for significant others, ones we love, just being available. And sometimes we think that it means not creating any boundaries. I mean, everything's wide open. So we're gonna talk a little bit today about how do we love difficult people without losing who we are. How do we do that? Because the Bible talks about love is biblical, love is sacrificial, but it's also wise. So we're gonna we're gonna talk about that. And I think when we think about love, we think sometimes it means carrying somebody else's life. What does that mean? What does it mean to carry somebody else's life? It means really that, oh, they have a problem, it is now my problem. They have a burden, oh, now that's my burden. They have all of these things going on, and now that's I mean, we've heard about people who live double lives, right? That's like a separate house, maybe a separate spouse, maybe all kinds of separate things. And you know, if you think about how you handle your house, your life, and you think, how could you do that in another life, you know, if it was living a double life. But aren't we kind of guilty of that sometimes? Because maybe we're taking on the life of our our grown children, or we're taking on the life of a friend that we're trying to help. Um, and all of their things become our things. But love doesn't mean that we are supposed to carry someone else's

Burdens Versus Personal Responsibility

SPEAKER_00 3:08

life. In Galatians 6, 2 through 5, the Bible says, carry each other's burdens in a way that you will you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks there is something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. You know, we talk about self a lot. Each one, each person should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load. So sometimes when it comes to our kiddos, we go, I'm letting you carry your own load because I love you. But a lot of times is what we do is we go, let me make all your problems go away because I love you. But sometimes we end up doing more harm than we do good. Because there's a difference, there's a difference between helping someone and carrying the responsibilities that belong to them. That looks completely different. If we're helping someone, we're helping helping them maybe manage the things that they're challenged with.

Encourage Without Rescuing

SPEAKER_00 4:30

I'll do it all for you. So we can also encourage people without rescuing them. If you're on the treadmill doing a hard workout, can I do it for you? I I can't get on the treadmill and do the work for you, and you go, man, I burned a lot of calories there and doing my workout on my treadmill. I can't do that, but I can encourage you. I can say you can do this, you you know, just a little bit further. You have a little bit more, stick with it. So we can encourage them without rescuing them, and sometimes, and this is really hard for people that we love to do with people that we love, really hard to do. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is allow someone to grow through their own choices for them to grow through them. It sometimes is not pretty at all. It's probably sometimes really maybe really ugly. But think about when you made some not good choices and you're allowed to grow through them. Did it change you on the other side? And the chances are probably real high you're gonna say yes. I came out of that a changed person. When we keep rescuing and not allowing that to happen, it's kind of like when we talk about in the Bible, it says, you know, you can spank a kid, it's okay. It's okay. But if if we're not, if we're now and say and making sure our kids know that they have consequences. And what happens if you're a kid that doesn't think anything in life is a consequence? What kind of adult do you grow up to be? The same kind, the one that thinks there's no quant consequences for anything. So loving someone means that we can allow them to grow through their choices. We don't have to carry, we don't have to carry their life. We can encourage them, we can be sometimes a safety net. What's a safety net? Have you ever seen anybody climbing on the high wire? And if they fall, where do they fall to? The safety net. Rescuing men would say never do that at all. Don't climb on that high wire at all. Don't do that. Whereas as people we love, we can go, go do it, and I'll put a safety net. I'll catch you, but it may not be comfortable, it may be painful, but you need to go have that experience. And so it's important to remember that we ask ourselves: Am I helping this person that I love or am I trying to save them? There's a difference. It's kind of like a crutch. When you think of an actual crutch, when you have something broken, do you use it forever? No, because what happens if you use it forever? If it's a leg and you keep using that crutch, what happens? Over time, that leg gets weaker. And there comes a time when you try to get rid of those crutches, and guess what? You can't stand up and you fall down. And so if you're helping a person, you're helping them get them past whatever they need. So we're not meant to carry what their life, we're not meant to carry the responsibility of their life, and and then when we think about love and we think about an example of love, we think of Jesus.

Jesus Models Healthy Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Jesus loved everyone, right? There's not anyone he didn't love. Jesus loves everybody. There's not one person that goes, I don't know about you. You're questionable. He loves everybody, but even the man that loved everybody. Listen to this in Mark, Mark 1, 35 through 38. Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him. And when they found him, they exclaimed, Everyone is looking for you. Jesus replied, Let's go somewhere else to the nearby villages so I can preach there also. This is why I have come. So even Jesus needed some alone time. He needed some time away. He needed to go see some other people. And when we think about Jesus, and who is he surrounded by the most? The people, the guys we hear about all the time. The 12 disciples. That was his group. That was his guys. Does he love everybody? Yes. Who do you invest in the most? Those disciples. Because again, their job was going to be to go out and disciple. But you know, he even within the 12, he had some close friendships and clo and love. But still, he would withdraw, and we can go passage lots of passages that we see Jesus re spend time alone to withdraw from everybody, to spend time in prayer and thought, spend time with with God. So we feel guilty about boundaries, right? But even Jesus had boundaries. Even Jesus said, Hey guys, I need some alone time. Even Jesus said, Look, you know, you guys are my group. Y'all are who I'm I'm with. And you might have three, four friends that you love, and and and they're your people. And you know, as the Ten Commandments say, love thy neighbor. We're instructed to love everybody, it's biblical, but we can be wise in how we do that. And know that we love everyone, but we trust wisely.

Love Them But Trust Wisely

SPEAKER_00 10:40

So, an example, my brother. I love my brother. He's my older brother, he's seven years older than me. A number of years ago, he withdrew from our family, probably six or seven years ago. I had no contact with us, none for a number of years. I'm still the only one he talks to in the family, and only via email. I haven't talked to him in person or text or anything like that. It's only via email. And that only happened a few years ago. I love my brother. You know, I always when I email him and tell him I miss him, check on how he's doing. I love him, but I don't trust him. There's things he's he tells, you know, what he's doing. I'm like, I take it with a grain of salt based on his his past and the things that my family has experienced with my brother. Love him, but I don't necessarily trust everything. So we can love, but we need to trust wisely. And we need to be smart about that. Just because I don't necessarily think all of everything's true doesn't mean I don't love him. I still want the best for him. He's still my brother, even though I haven't talked to him, even the way everything happened, how he left and didn't have contact with our family and all that, you know, still maybe wasn't, in my opinion, the right way, but I still love him. I still miss him. I miss my brother, I miss talking to him. But be wise in what I trust. So we we can do that. And when we do that, we begin to protect some boundaries. We have, and boundaries, if you think about it, we I think sometimes we think, like if you think about the law along the border, we think about you know, that's just to keep people out. And that's what we think of, I think, when we think of boundaries. It's to you can't come past here. I'm blocking you off. It's not a barricade, a boundary really helps to protect sometimes what's inside, which is a relationship. So boundaries, if we have boundaries, it helps protect the relationship. In Proverbs 4.23, it says, above all else, guard your heart from for everything you do follows from it. So if we we have to guard our heart, we have to have boundaries, just as Jesus did. He had boundaries, loved everybody, but he needed time alone. He wanted time with the the disciples. He he needed those, he set those boundaries.

Boundaries Protect Joy And Prevent Resentment

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Because what happens without boundaries is sometimes compassion becomes enabling, and that and that, and sometimes that happens without us even knowing. I'm gonna be real compassionate, and then we look back and go, oh my gosh, I didn't realize I enabled that person. I was just trying to help. Sometimes serving becomes resentment because it's like I'm always doing this for her, I'm always doing this for him. I I just so irritated. Like, I gotta do this again. When it started, it was like, I'm so happy to help. What can I do for you? And then now it has the a good, the good purpose and of serving has now turned into something that you resent. Saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, becomes burnout. It's too much. I can't handle it. I'm tired of saying yes. So our our healthy boundaries help protect our peace, they help protect our family. They allow us to love others with joy instead of obligation. Think of some of those people in your life that you love. Are you loving them out of joy or obligation? And sometimes, and and we get tired of hearing this, I know, but if we're loving them out of out of obligation instead of joy, guess whose responsibility that is? They didn't do it. We did it because we said yes too many times. We we served too much and it turned into resentment. We had we kept our compassion going and growing for all the reasons we give ourselves. We're all guilty of it. We'll keep giving it to ourselves, keep telling us. When there becomes a time when we now we enabled them, and now that's turned into a different thing. So sometimes we think, you know, boundaries don't keep love away, they keep resentment out, and it and it's really what we want to keep away. We want to we want to keep obligation out, we want to keep joy in. And so we have to set those boundaries because we want to decide how do we want to love? And are we loving with resentment? Is that really love? Are we loving with without joy or burnout? Or and we think about all those things, and how do we want

Forgiveness Without Full Access

SPEAKER_00 15:30

to love? And by setting those boundaries, just like Jesus did, is really an act of wanting to love better and love biblically, and and then we as we finish that up, we think about as we love people, we want to forgive them because we love love everybody, and and forgiveness, and we talk about this quite often, but forgiveness isn't always about reconciling, making it, you know, okay, you said we're good now, you know, it's and reckless side, reckless, I can't even say it. Anyhow, when both sides are okay, maybe it's not about the other side saying they're okay, maybe it's just about forgiveness for us, which means we release the hurt, means we're trusting God with the peace or the justice. And it doesn't always mean that we immediately trust somebody. Just because we forgive them doesn't mean okay, now we trust them. Everything that went off, my brother, I forgive him. I don't understand it. I never will. We probably never have that conversation. So we don't have to have a conversation one-on-one for me to say, I forgive you. We don't have to have that. I can do it, and through that forgiveness, I can now have those conversations with my brother via email, and I truly am generally concerned about his well-being, how he's doing. And it doesn't always mean that, you know, if we forgive somebody, it's not about giving them an all, and we've talked about an all-access pass. It doesn't mean that now you give them that. We still have boundaries, we still have things that were, you know, we let certain people in those boundaries. And it doesn't always mean when we when we forgive that we return to that unhealthy relationship of some sort. Forgiveness is a decision. It's a decision of saying, I'm going to forgive. And the decision, it's not a decision by words, it's a decision by a feeling and actions. And again, forgiveness truly is, it's not about forgetting, just as you know, we it's trust wisely. Forgiveness is about saying, I know what happened, I'm not going to be emotionally tied to that anymore, and I'm going to move forward. So it's a forgive, it's a decision, but yet trust still has to be rebuilt over time. For the act of forgiveness doesn't give full access to trust back, it just doesn't happen, um, nor should it happen.

When Saying No Protects Peace

SPEAKER_00 18:07

And so kind of the challenge this week, think about this. As if if you find yourself saying yes, if you're a yeser, say, am I saying yes because God is leading me or because I feel guilty? Think about all the times you say yes. Is it because you're being led to that yes, or is that yes out of guilt? And guess what? If that yes is out of guilt, it steals your joy, and it's because of the obligation. So sometimes love has boundaries, and guess what? Love has boundaries by the word no, because you're saying, I'm protecting my peace, I'm protecting my joy. And by saying no, I can do that. Because we think, will that bring about peace or resentment? And so sometimes by saying the no, we are living, we are loving better because we can show up better. And we can love difficult people that are hard to love because we all have those people in our lives that are hard to love. We can do that, but we can still protect what we have, we can still love them, as the Bible says, but we can trust wisely, and that is up to us. And sometimes we have to learn, and sometimes it takes a while to learn how to love people because sometimes we can, again, sometimes it's real fine lines how we think we're really being helpful, and then it's really not. And it and sometimes the only way we learn that, unfortunately, is just like a kid riding a bike. They get on, fall off, get on, fall off, get on, fall off. And sometimes they get bumps and scrapes and bruises, and you go, Well, I'm not gonna fall off again. Well, I hit a bump, I fell over again. And we learn that the same way when it comes to loving difficult people. We might get irritated ourselves and go, Well, why'd I let them do that again? But sometimes it's like, why'd I fall off my bike again? I'll get back on and I'm gonna do it again. And we just keep doing it. And so we we do have to love people, but we also have to make sure that we protect our joy and peace in our lives so we can go out and serve them and serve others in a better, more loving manner.

Prayer And Weekend Blessing

SPEAKER_00 20:33

So I'll finish this up in prayer and then we can go on about our Fourth of July weekend. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for bringing all of us together. Um, Lord, just work within us as as we love those people around us that what we can love as the Bible tells us to, but we can also do that in a in a manner that is uplifting to you, meaning encouraging to others, and also helps us love ourselves in that same manner that we can pour out and give more to others. And I just thank you for today's word. And I just pray for everyone over the holiday weekend, just keep them safe. I'm helping to have a great weekend with family and friends and just return safe. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank you, everybody, and thank you, DGU, for joining us on Soulfin. Look forward to seeing you right here next time on Soulfin.