How to Love Difficult People (What the Bible Says)

We all have them — the people who are simply hard to love. The critical relative, the difficult colleague, the friend who wounded us, even the enemy. Loving the lovely is easy; the Bible calls us to something much harder, and gives us the strength to do it. Here's an honest look at how to love difficult people.

Jesus calls us to love even enemies

Jesus set the bar startlingly high: 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.' Anyone can love those who love them back, he said; his followers are called to something more. This isn't natural — which is exactly why it points to a supernatural source of love.

Love is action, not just feeling

Here's a freeing truth: biblical love is mainly about how we act, not how we feel. You may not be able to summon warm feelings for a difficult person — and you don't have to in order to love them. Love 'suffereth long, and is kind'; it chooses patience, kindness, and good will, even toward those who are hard. You can act lovingly before, and even without, feeling loving.

Remember how you've been loved

The fuel for loving the difficult is remembering how God has loved us. 'While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' We were once God's enemies, and he loved us anyway, at great cost. When we grasp how patiently and undeservedly we've been loved, we find the grace to extend it to others. We love difficult people out of the overflow of being loved ourselves.

Pray for them

Jesus specifically said to pray for those who mistreat us — and it's transformative. It's very hard to keep resenting someone you're genuinely praying for. Prayer softens our hearts, invites God to work in them and in us, and often changes our own attitude first. Start praying for the difficult person, honestly, and watch what it does to you.

Set wise boundaries, and release them to God

Loving difficult people doesn't mean becoming a doormat or enabling harmful behaviour. You can love someone and still set healthy boundaries; sometimes that's the most loving thing. And you can release them, and the hurt, to God — trusting him with justice and outcomes rather than carrying bitterness yourself. Love them, do good where you can, and hand the rest to God.

Loving difficult people is one of the hardest things Jesus asks — and one of the clearest marks of his followers. It means choosing loving action even without loving feelings, drawing strength from how we've been loved, praying for those who are hard to love, and setting wise boundaries while releasing bitterness to God. We can't do it in our own strength, but with God's, we can love as we've been loved — and few things display his grace more clearly.