How To Pray For The Difficult People In Your Life

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Are there difficult people in your life who just makes everything miserable?

Perhaps even the mention of their name gives you a tension headache?

Maybe something happens to trigger a memory about what this person did. Instantly you are filled with anger and bitterness just as if it happened yesterday.

Bitterness Is Planted

Ten years ago, I was working at a local grocery store in town to pay my way through college. One day, due to a last-minute schedule change made my the head manager, I came in two hours later than the originally scheduled time. Unfortunately, the head manager that had made the change forgot to write it down or inform the assistant manager (let’s call her Carla for the sake of this story.)

So I showed up to work two hours later and Carla decided to let me know her true feelings about me.  After what felt like an eternity of cuss words directed me, Carla finally stormed away satisfied that she had set me in my place.

Among all of her cuss-filled complaints, she listed one grievance in particular. That I was allowed some Sunday mornings off to attend church. She felt that was special treatment for me. (Many, many cuss words removed from this paraphrase of what she said.)

Also, I found it ironic due to the fact that she had literally just left a list of days off request on our managers door with over 17 days mentioned!

After storming off, she left me in a shocked, speechless blubbering heap. As an 18 year old girl just starting to get a taste of the “real-world” I can honestly say that I had never been spoken to like that.

When I got off work, I drove out to my parent’s farm for the night. I was so crushed. Every single word “Carla” said was replaying over and over in my head. None of it seemed even slightly fair or right. My parents did their best to encourage me and help me put on my big girl panties to get back to work and school the next day.

Bitterness Continues To Grow

In fact, the next day when I went back to work, the head manager came and personally apologized for what Carla had done to me. It was nice to know that my boss did not share her sentiments. Looking back, I am shocked on so many levels about everything that transpired that day. But what happened did happen. Every single time I had to work with Carla for the next year, I would feel anger and sickness.

In fact, often the nights before I knew I would be working with her, I would end up laying awake all night long just stewing over what she had said in her blow up.

When Carla had her pickup break down, I will silently giggle with delight at the fact that she couldn’t make it to work. After the manager changed her hours to be the latest possible ones instead of her preferred morning hours, I smugly enjoyed her frustrations and suffering. When I was finally able to move on from that job, the fact that I got to leave her behind in that horrible job and store just made me jubilant!

 

Bitterness Uprooted

I am not proud of this reaction in the least. But these were indeed my reactions.

In fact, I wish I was never having to share it with any one because it was not a high point in my walk with God. It took some major health problems that caused me to end up bed-ridden for almost a month to catch my attention.

During my time of health problems, I started to really dive in and study my Bible in depth again. This time of forced rest meant I spent time away from the world’s distractions talking to God. Those times of study and conversation with God were painful because they showed many areas of sin in my life that had led me away from God.

One Scripture that kept coming back to me and causing me pause was Jesus’ call in the Sermon on the Mount to pray for those that persecute me. Now, I know I did not face direct persecution in the terms of being thrown to the lions for my faith or anything. However, I knew that my bitterness and frustration with this difficult person had to change if I was ever going to be able to really restore a healthy strong relationship with God.

So what could I do?

Well, I prayed for Carla.  Every day, every time I thought of her, I prayed. I prayed through gritted teeth. Honestly, it surprised me how bitter and hardened I had let myself become!

I wish I could tell you that she changed or even that she came and apologized to me for her insensitive outburst but none of that ever happened.

But I can praise God and say that even as I wrote about it just now, the feelings of bitterness, of rage, and definitely the feelings of wanting revenge in some sense, have long sense vanished. Christ has removed them.

Will I ever trust Carla or be her nearest and dearest friend? Most likely not. But I have forgiven her and moved on to deeper levels in my relationship with God.

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How To Pray For The Difficult People In Your Life

 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.”

Matthew 5:43-45

Okay, let’s look at some ways that you can follow Christ’s command to pray for those that persecute you and make your life just downright difficult!

Pray For Them Every Time You Think About Them

When I was first dealing with the hurtful coworker, I must admit she was in my thoughts all the time. Finally, when God got a hold of me and convicted me of my bitterness, I started turning my bitter thoughts over to Him.

Every single time this person pops into your mind, say a prayer for them. Pray that God helps you to pray for them even!

Satan loves when our minds are distracted and filled with mean-spirited thoughts. By turning these types of thoughts over to Christ and instead let them become a trigger to pray, we can fight a spiritual battle against Satan. Often, I find when I start to pray for the difficult person, they simply disappear from my thoughts.

While I don’t want to give Satan more power than he has, I am convinced he loves to use our minds against us. When we turn our mean thoughts into a catalyst for prayer, Satan will often stop battling us on this front.

Pray For Them To Be Blessed

If you ever get a chance I highly recommend you go through the Romans 12 Bible study by Chip Ingrim. While there is so much great teaching in this study, I can honestly say one session of teaching has stuck with me for the past several years.

In one session, Chip shares a similar situation of being pestered quite badly by a person in his life. And God challenged Chip to pray for that person to be blessed. As he tells the story, Chip admits to praying this person be blessed through gritted teeth for quite some time. However, as the days turn into months and then into years, he said he found himself gladly praying for this difficult person.

After a while, he could honestly say he was praying that this person would truly be blessed in every way possible.

Often, we need to be faithful and pray for their blessing even when the last thing on earth that we want is for them to be blessed!

Pray For Them To Encounter God

God loves this difficult person. As much as that is hard for our human brains to comprehend, He does love and He wants to have a relationship with them.

Take time to pray that the frustrating individuals in our lives will encounter the One True Living God. Truly, nothing else will ever hope to change this person except for the power of Christ and His forgiveness of sins.

How To Pray For Yourself As You Deal With The Difficult Person

Let’s be honest, sometimes we need to pray for ourselves and our reactions to the difficult people in our lives. We are not in this alone. Submit our weaknesses to God and watch Him use His strengths where we are failing.

Pray For God’s Love For Them

Again, God loves this difficult person so much! Pray and ask God to give you His love for this person.

Our own very limited resources of love will fail quickly when faced with challenges by those around us. Yet, when God’s love is in our hearts, we have a limitless supply of abiding, grace-filled love. He will help us pass along His love time and time again to even the most difficult people we face.

Pray For God’s View Of Them

Holocaust survivor Corrie ten Boom once shared that our view of people and situations is often like looking at the back of a piece of embroidery. It is an ugly mess of threads and knots. But from God’s view on the top, it is a beautiful masterpiece.

Pray and ask God to give you His view on the situation. Sometimes, He might allow you glimpses. Perhaps you will finally see why the difficult person is hurting and therefore hurting others. Oftentimes, God will reveal how He is using this challenging person to grow your faith.

No matter how God chooses to answer, you can be sure that He has a much better view of the situation than you do!

Pray For Spirit-Filled Responses

When Jesus left this world, He promised to send the Holy Spirit to help us. Seek God in pray and ask Him to help you let the Holy Spirit guide all your responses to this demanding person.

Remember the Holy Spirit can equip to exhibit the Fruits of the Spirit towards this person!

Pray For Healthy Boundaries

Of all of these prayers, this is the hardest. I am not a good person when it comes to setting boundaries for myself. As the years have passed, I have prayed often that God give me the wisdom to set proper boundaries with difficult people in my life. As a dear older lady in my church has often counseled, “Forgive the person, but don’t go looking for more!”

Pray that you will find ways to remedy certain unhealthy situations with healthy new relationship guidelines.

Also, for more on setting boundaries, I definitely recommend that you check out this book!

Pray For Healing

Finally, pray that God will help heal your heart from the wounds caused by this hurtful person. Realize that you have indeed been hurt. Acknowledge there is brokenness that only God can repair.

Most of all, recognize that He is able to help you pick up the pieces and move on in wholeness and forgiveness.

Your Turn

Have you encountered a person in your life that has left you bitter and crushed?

Have you turned this person over to God in prayer?

Share ways you have prayed for difficult people in your life in the comments below!

 

Also, if you know of someone who is facing a situation with a difficult person, could you please share this article with them?

 

Thank you for stopping by!

 

 

 

 

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