I think few men would have done what Dave did, because most people are too addicted to their own comfort to be willing to suffer in order to give God time to heal another person. But Dave is a godly man, and an unusually patient one, and he learned early in our relationship to enjoy the parts of me that were enjoyable and turn the ones that weren’t over to God. He knew he couldn’t change me, so he prayed for me and went about enjoying his life.

When you find yourself faced with someone who is hard to love, thinking about how God loved you when you were hard to love will help. The first step toward loving people who are hard to love is to pray for ourselves to have a godly attitude and to remember that God loved us when we were hard to love.

Having a desire to please God doesn’t mean we will enjoy loving people who are hard to love. Remember, love is much more than a feeling. It is how we treat people. God isn’t asking us to let people abuse us, but He is asking us not to give up on them simply because they are difficult to deal with. There are times when we cannot be with certain people because they are abusive, but we can still pray for them and love them in ways that won’t put us in harm’s way. These are rare cases, and most of what we are talking about in this book pertains to ordinary people who for a variety of reasons are just hard to love.