We often meet some people and wonder why they are so ‘difficult’. They are hurtful. Cynical. Rigid. Demanding. Self-seeking. And worse, they get away with it because of their position, (muscle or money) power and persona. Let’s face it! It happens everywhere.
But, seldom do we realize that we are ‘difficult’ in our own way. We often make things difficult for others consciously or unconsciously. None of us are born difficult but then, we become difficult because of our life’s journey. We are the products of our choices and the context/s we are nurtured in. Sadly, we don’t realize how difficult we can be to people around us.
We could be demanding, demeaning, and worse dehumanizing in our interactions at home, work or at play. We control, manipulate and emotionally armtwist those around us.Soon such behaviour becomes habitual and others are forced to accept our ‘likes’, ‘dislikes’, ‘tastes’ and ‘preferences’. We put a facade – efficiency, attention to detail, compliance to the rule book, hunger for success, perfectionism and aggressiveness – to cover our self-centeredness, insecurity, fear of losing control, inferiority, egoism. We seek legitimacy for our difficult behaviour through our position, power and persona.
Why must people fear us? Why must people become before us what they are not? Why must people feel stupid before us? Why must people shrink on the inside and get their self-esteem fractured every time they come meet with us? Why must they desperately seek our approval? We never know how difficult we are unless we give freedom to people to express what they truly think of us.
Life offers us opportunites to know ourselves. But, we turn the other way. Meeting our true selves is a painful experience. It isn’t easy to see ourselves as hurtful, cynical, rigid, demanding and self seeking. We make the right excuses. We hide behind legality. We talk of rights. We make our case an exception. We blame it on extraordinary circumstances.
So, the use and abuse of people happens within our homes (?), our churches (?) and in society. As parents we could be ‘difficult’ to our children. As Children, we could be difficult to our parents. As spouses we could be difficult to one another. As church goers we could be difficult to one another. As an active member we could be difficult to those working with us. As leaders, we could be difficult to those working ‘under’ us. We are quick to point to the ‘use and abuse’ in society but are reluctant to speak about these in our homes and churches. Blatant misuse of power, position and persona are not challenged let alone dealt with. May be, as South asians, we tend to protect our home (families) and church (a family of families) from such alegations of ‘use and abuse’ for the sake of honour, pride and social standing.
As followers of Jesus, we need to be people who would heal hurts. We need to mend brokenness. We need to fix fractured self-image. The Church, as a community of faith, needs to be a healing community. We need to ‘provoke one another for good works’. Unfortunately, what we get is a feel-good, look-good version of Christian spirituality. We are constantly overfed with sermons about miracle, money, mission and motivation that we don’t take the rigours of discipleship. We are promised a dive deep into depths of spirituality, but we only get to wade in the shallows.
Lost in the jungle of cultural Christianity, doctrinal Christianity, and hypochris(tianit)y, we get to meet everyone in Church except Jesus. We get to talk about everything except following Jesus. Discipleship gets a low priority in our Church engagements. Christianity is all about following Jesus. And following Jesus is all about ‘denying’ oneself to become a new creation. It is about dealing with our insecurity, pride, prejudice, self-centeredness, false notions of power etc. Jesus by stepping into our world shows us the way of self-giving love. It is in stark contrast to what we know.
This Christmas, let us meet ourselves in the manger. As ‘we fall on our knees’ to adore Christ the King let us see ourselves as we truly are. His followers need to step into the ‘lowly’ stable and receive gifts that money can’t buy. We must give ourselves gifts that money can’t buy. We must treat each other with love, respect and gentleness.
This Christmas, we must offer to carry the ‘cross’ and become less difficult to people around us. Giving up – our rights, our preferences, our rigidities, and our self seeking ways – would be a powerful way of (re)telling the Christmas story. The greatest miracle – the true power of the gospel – is the transformation of our hearts. God (re)making us to be human again.
What is that we struggle with? – Is it ‘insecurity’, ‘fear’, ‘inferiority’,’ self-centredness’, ‘false notions of power’? Let’s come just as we are (poor, wretched blind) to the manger and meet Christ. But, let’s make sure we meet ourselves and ask God to deal with deep seated struggles are destroy us each time we make life difficult for another person – most probably someone very close to us.
