Diligent-a word study

Diligent: constant in effort to accomplish something, attentive and persistent indoing  anything; done or pursued with persevering attention, painstaking 

Synonyms: industrious, assidious, sedulous, infatigable, untiring, tireless, unremitting, earnest, studious, eager, conscientious, active, careful, constant, eager beaver,grind, laborious, oculied, pertinacious, steadfast, unflagging, persisting, hard-working

Antonyms: careless, disinterested, idle, ignorant, inactive, inattentive, indifferent, languid, lazy, lethargic, neglectful, negligent, thoughtless, tired, uncareful, unconcerned, unenthusiastic, unscrupulous, weary

I'd encourage you to look up the roots & definitions of the following words. Assidious, sedulous, pertinacious & steadfast at www.dictionary.com 

Very enlightening! Then share your thoughts below! 

What does it mean (to me) to be diligent? 

It means I am focused on the end game, the result, the finish line, the other person, the commitment I made. It means that when things are hard I persevere through it. It means I persist in what I've undertaken. I maintain a purpose in spite of difficulty or obstacles or discouragement (even broken human promises). It means I am fixed on my direction and firm in my actions. It means I am constant in my effort to accomplish what I set out to do. I am attentive, willing to work hard and hold on tenaciously to that purpose.*

**What does that look like in the context of seeking God? In my marriage? In my parenting? In my friendships?**

In the context of seeking God, it means I spend time in His Word, talking to Him, asking Him question and LISTENING to His answers, especially when they might not be what I want to hear or the answer comes in a way I didn't want. 

It means I place more value on what God says over my own desires. 

It means like a runner heading to the finish line, I stick close to Him whom I am chasing. 

It means that no matter how I may try to justify mypersonal  choices, God's Word is my guide. 

It means I don't twist His words to justify my actions. 

It means I take God's Word as a whole, knowing one verse doesn't negate another or that one verse taken from it's context (verses around it & the intended audience) can be warped. So I must do my homework. 

It means that regardless of anyone else's interpretation, I will always seek what God is saying and believe His words over those of amy man or woman. 

It means I am constant in my efforts to become more like Christ. 

And it means I will never "arrive" this side of heaven so I must hold my hands open willing to do the work God needs me to do to change me into Christlikeness. 

It means I am careful when listening to other voices (my own included). 

It means I am not swayed by what my heart wants. 

**questions I am still pondering. Would absolutely love to hear your thoughts! 

Part 5-Extra Grace Required-Jesus on Difficult People

Today... short & to the point to wrap up the topic... I know many may not have ever seen these entries and that is ok... I just hope that we will all take a look at how we deal with difficult people... I mean really folks... come on ... ya know we ALL HAVE THEM IN OUR LIVES!!!  So here it is...

The best strategy for dealing with difficult people is Christ's strategy.
As you can see, there is really only one effective behavior on this entire grid.  There is only one behavior that effectively moves a situation toward resolution.  In closing let me call your attention to Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:15-17 (NIV).  "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.  If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.  But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.  If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or tax collector."

Project truth.  Be proactive when someone sins against you.  Show him his fault.  Tell him about the impact of his actions or words.  Project grace.  If he refuses to listen, treat him like a pagan or tax collector.  Treat him as a person outside the family of Christ, as a potential Christian, and as a person who needs to know the love and forgiveness of Christ.

You can never go wrong with Christ-like behavior.






So friends... I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic...

Part 2-Extra Grace Required-Jesus on Difficult People

Jesus dealt with lots of difficult people.
When you read the New Testament you will notice that Jesus was constantly surrounded by difficult people of every degree.  People who didn’t understand, who didn’t like him, who were threatened by him, and who were even trying to kill him.  Jesus never reacted violently to the difficult people in his life.  Could you imagine what would have happened if he would have reacted violently?  If he would have commanded his angels, or if he would have flexed the muscle of God, or if he would have commanded the elements of nature, or unleashed the torrents of hell?

Jesus would have been one bad dude!  No one would have messed with him.  But as it was, Jesus restrained himself.  He did not become violent or careless.  But Jesus wasn’t a doormat either.  He confronted his enemies.  But intead of confronting them with swords, daggers, threats, or insults, Jesus confronted his enemies with a forceful mixture of grace and truth.  He didn’t muddle up grace with passivity, or truth with violence.  Instead, he brought grace and truth together in perfect harmony and delivered one devastating, paralyzing blow after another to the difficult people in his life.

Jesus has a lot to teach us about dealing with the difficult people in our lives.  But we must consider his overall way of life and the sum total of all his teachings in order to develop an effective strategy for handling difficult people.  To accomplish this I want to introduce you to a simple concept that captures the essence of Jesus' effective behavior when dealing with difficult people.

Let me begin by saying that our behavior is critically important.  Our behavior toward people really does influence their behavior toward us.  More often than not, our behavior with difficult people determines whether that person will continue being a difficult person.  There are two dimensions of behavior that we need to be concerned about all the time.

More tomorrow...
Yeah, I know today's post is pretty short... but I am curious what 2 dimensions of behavior YOU think we need to be concerned about in light of how we treat other people while trying to follow Jesus' example?

Extra Grace Required... Jesus on Difficult People

Grab your favorite cuppa something, maybe a little chocolate and join me...

This is a topic I have wrestled with most of my life... How am I to treat the difficult people (or as I often am heard calling them ~ "EGR"-Extra Grace Required ) that have been placed in my life? As I've searched scripture, picked the brains of women I admire-those who aren't afraid to speak truth yet do it in such a way as to build up not tear down, prayed ALOT and then moved in the way God directed I have come to this point in my life... It is truth & grace together with love! I must speak up WHEN God is leading me to! I must look inward WHEN God tells me to! It isn't always about the "other" person, sometimes it is as much about me as it is them!  Learning the difference is challenging.

Today, thanks to a dear friend, I have read an article that can be found at this link that has put into words EXACTLY what I've tried to tell people when they ask me how I deal with the difficult people in my life.

I am going to repost the link in parts on here (and hopefully share some of my own thoughts too) so that you can all read and absorb with me what Lakeside Christian Church shared back in August 2003.

I try very hard not to "land" on what man says, I try to "land" on God's Word...I feel like this article takes an honest look at how we want to react... Yet it takes us back to Jesus, His teachings & His real-life example of how to respond to difficult people (or circumstances for that matter). THAT is why I appreciate the authors words so much and why I think they resonated so clearly to me. His "reactions" are very much my own...however, I am called to respond NOT react (another post on that in the future).

Read on won't you? (don't forget to leave your thoughts in the comments!!  I LOVE to hear from you too)

PART 1-Difficult People
All of us have difficult people in our lives.  My wife has been married to a difficult person for over seven years.  She has tried to tell me what it's like, but I just won’t hear of it!

Difficult people are special.  They are always there for us when others aren’t, but especially on our bad days.  When all hope seems lost.  They have an uncanny way of saying things that just dampens the day!  They can always be counted on to bring out the worst in us, to be obtuse and disagreeable, to make easy things impossible, to put a negative spin on the things we do, to speak ill of us, or to ignite an inextinguishable fire in our bellies.  You know, they do all the very same things Satan does.

The Bible says in Isaiah 40:6 (NIV), "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;  the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of God remains forever."  Something else that remains forever are difficult people.  As much as we wish they would, they never go away!

I don’t think we have ever been taught how to deal with difficult people.  I sure wish that I had been taught how to deal with difficult people when I was in high school.  Those were some of the toughest years of my life.  As a freshman, I had guys who bullied me daily.  They'd insult and humiliate me in front of my friends, slam me into the locker, knock my books out of my hands, and destroy my art or shop projects.  One guy blew snot on me.  Those guys weren’t just difficult.  They might also be characterized as evil.

Two poor strategies for dealing with difficult people
But I only knew how to respond with one of two extremes.  The first extreme was to punch them in the mouth.  To physically and violently react, to join them on their level, and give them a taste of their own medicine.  In high school I did weight training not for athletic reasons, but for survival.  I wanted to become stronger and tougher than my enemies so as to defeat them.  Fighting can be a tremendous release.  It momentarily satisfies our base desire to exact revenge and to retaliate a wrong that has been suffered.  But in the end, I discovered that violence begets violence.

One time in high school I decked a guy, only to discover the very next day that several of his buddies wanted to take a shot at me.  I had my hands full for weeks.  I learned that it really is eye for eye and tooth for tooth.  At that age I was already too ugly to go around toothless and eyeless my whole life!  Besides, it's not the Christian way.

In Matthew 5:38-41 (NIV) Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.'  But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person.  If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.  And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.  If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles."  Jesus wanted his followers to break the cycle of violence and not perpetuate it.

The other extreme reaction we often take, especially as Christians, is passivity.  We become like doormats and we allow difficult people to walk all over us.  This is  how we interpret Jesus' words in Matthew 5.  We think the best response is no response.  We think difficult people will repent when they see our inaction, hear our silence, taste our saltiness, or feel our love.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression.  In high school I rarely stood up for myself.  I’d only react when pushed to the most extreme limits.  Most of the time I’d lick my wounds and struggle in quiet passivity, counting the days until I would become an upper classman or even better, graduate!  I’d hold my tongue.  I’d turn the other cheek.  I’d go that extra mile.  I’d quell my emotions and anger.  I’d suppress my hurts.  But my passivity only seemed to empower the difficult people around me.  They were emboldened by my inaction and took their abuses to new heights.

In the same way, many of you are caught between the two extremes.  You don’t want to just stand by as that difficult person inflicts fresh damage.  But in the same vein you don’t want to become like him and sink to his level.  So what are we to do with the difficult people in our lives?  If not violence or passivity, then what?  What would Jesus do?

Check back again for Part 2-IT GETS EVEN BETTER!!!!