People who are hurting hurt people.

Happy people don’t hurt people. Happy people want to help people, not hurt them.

We need to remember this when people are mean or rude or cruel to us.

Jesus said that it’s the sick who need help, not those who are well.

Scratch the surface of anyone who is mean or cruel or hurtful in any way, and you’ll find a painful festering sore below.

The greater the pain gets, the more people deflect it to other people and blame other people.

People who are in pain will growl and bite you if you get too close, the way animals will growl and bite you when you reach to help them.

People in pain need prayers, not curses. They need a gentle presence (from a safe distance, if necessary).

Those people who treat you like dirt – PRAY FOR THEM. Don’t tell them you’re praying for them, just PRAY FOR THEM.

And choose to forgive them.

Don’t dwell on their cruelty; dwell on how miserable they must be, not to know God’s love.

That’s a horrible cold dark wretched place to live, where God isn’t welcome.

We are blessed to know God’s love, to live in his brightness and joy and warmth. Each of us who is born again has enough of God’s love to share with all the world and still have love to spare, just like Jesus had enough loaves and fishes to feed the hungry masses and still have leftovers. Each of us has that much love – enough for every human in the world, and then some – if we let go of any lingering resentment, and let God love fully through us.

That’s your job, as a born-again, to love like God loves, to love like Jesus loved, fully and without reserve.

Only people who are hurting hurt people.

Don’t make their pain worse: help them.