3 Ways to Love Your Friend When It’s Hard

This episode contains portions of the following programs:

"Love Is Patient"

"Speaking the Truth in Love"

"The Challenge to Love"

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Dannah Gresh: Some friends are easy to love, right? They’re kind, considerate, joyful, and sweet to spend time with. But then there’s those who make it a little more challenging. 

Maybe they’re prone to complaining. Maybe they have a critical spirit. Maybe they’re just plain rude! Turns out not all friendships will be easy. But just because someone is hard to love, doesn’t mean we get a free pass. 

Today’s program is all about loving friends when it’s hard. We’ll explore three ways to do that—being slow to anger, speaking the truth in love, and remembering the gospel.

I’m your host Dannah Gresh, and you’re listening to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. 

Over on True Girl, my podcast for tweens and their moms, Staci Rudolph and I sometimes talk about how to handle mean girls. And as you’re probably all too aware, that’s not just a topic for ten year olds! There are mean girls in the adult world, too. 

When we’ve got a difficult woman in our lives, how do we handle that relationship gracefully? I want to give you the same advice I gave to our tween girls. The first way you can love a friend when it’s hard is by being slow to anger—or as we say over at True Girl, slow to boil. Here’s part of an episode called “Love Is Patient.”

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Dannah: I have to tell you, True Girl, that if you don't intentionally practice kindness right now, you might not like what you are when you grow up, because mean girls grow up to become mean women.

Staci and I have been scouring the news for true stories of mean girls who’ve grown into mean women.

Staci Rudolph: And let me tell you, True Girl, it ain’t pretty! One mean-girl-grown-mean-woman was shopping in a furniture store when she tripped over an unruly toddler, breaking her ankle. She threw a woman-sized mean-girl fit and sued the store. That means she blamed the store and tried to make them pay for her pain. In court, she won three-quarters of a million dollars. Never mind the fact that the little boy she happened to trip over was her own son. 

Dannah: Oh no. 

Staci: Crazy enough for you? 

Dannah: Yes. Insane!

Here’s another one: one woman was shopping once when a blind man and his brand-new seeing eye dog were walking towards her. This woman said to her husband, and I quote, I’m reading it here in the news: “I wanted to see if the dog would go around me.” So, she didn't move. The blind man stepped on her big toe and unfortunately broke it. The woman sued the Southeastern Guide Dogs Association for not properly training the dog. I'm not even kidding you! This actually happened; it’s in the news. 

Staci: Can you even . . .?

Dannah: The court threw the case out saying it wasn't much of a case at all, but the truth remains that you and I live in a mean girl's world that's gone boiling mad. 

Staci: Boiling mad? I’m starting to think you’re obsessed with boiling today. Boiling water. Boiling mad.

Dannah: You’re going to get it in a few minutes. Hang in there.

Staci: Well, thankfully, true girl, you and I aren't without a plan of action when we’re tempted to be the mean girl. 

Let’s read our power verse. You heard part of this in the last episode. It’s found in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, which we hope you’re memorizing along with us during this season of the True Girl podcast. If you haven’t started, it’s not too late. You can easily catch up with us. Okay, here’s your power verse. 1 Corinthians 13:4–5 says,

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.

Dannah: Okay, let’s go back to the original language of the New Testament Bible. It was originally written in . . . do you remember?

Yes, Greek! I knew you would remember. Looking at this language is going to help us understand what does it really mean to be patient?

In Greek, the word for patient was used to talk about something (here it is) boiling slowly rather than quickly. Are you ready for this? If we read it in its original form, maybe it would sound something like this:

“Love is slow to boil.” 

Staci: Ah, so the opposite of “boiling mad”! And those people in those news articles were “quick to boil.” I get it now.

Dannah: Yep! Now picture that you're that woman who gets stepped on by the blind man. First, you focus on how much your big toe hurts. Suddenly, you feel a little bit like everything inside of you is starting to boil. If you keep fuming, you'll find that before long you're screaming like a steaming kettle of boiling water.

Staci: But the Bible says that true love isn't like that. True love is slow to boil. 

Dannah: Yeah, to learn what that means, let’s read the rest of these verses again. They say “Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.”

So, to be slow to boil includes not demanding things go your way. It means when they don’t go your way, you do not get irritated. And when someone really does something that could irritate you, even then, you forgive rather than keeping a record of the wrong or making a big deal out of what they did to offend you.

Staci: I actually found a news story of a boy named Joshua. Now that you’re describing this Dannah, I’m starting to think Joshua was “slow to boil.” For the record, this also really happened. True story.

Joshua had one of his best days ever. When he got a brand-new bike for Christmas, he loved it so much that he rode it every single day. But then this awful thing happened. He actually saw an older man steal his bike! 

Joshua cried out for that man to stop, but the man just turned and looked at him. Then, he stuffed Joshua's bike into his truck, jumped into the driver's seat and drove off. 

Joshua was heartbroken. His bike was gone; he loved that bike. But he was a slow boiler. He asked his mom to help him send a message to the thief. Together, they wrote these words on a poster board and put it at the end of his driveway.

To the person who stole my bike,

You really hurt my feelings when you took it, but I'm a Christian. And because Jesus forgave me, I forgive you. 

Dannah: Wow! Now, that's what it's like to be slow to boil. Joshua forgave his enemy. He demonstrated Christ's love by being patient. 

Let’s be honest, I think we would all be “boiling mad” if it were not for Jesus’ love in us helping us to be “slow to boil.” Without Him, it’s not possible.

Staci: But let me tell you this, the story isn’t over. 

Dannah: Oh?

Staci: Guess what? When Josh's father left for work the next day, the sign was face down in the yard. And at the end of the driveway, believe it or not, was the bike!

Dannah: Wow!

Staci: Right? They brought it back. 

True Girl, you can choose to react like the rest of this world with mean words and by defending your rights or you can react to mean girls like Jesus suggests, by being patient and forgiving. Be slow to boil.

Dannah: My friend Staci Rudolph is right. Whether you’re a True Girl or a True Woman, you have a choice to make. When a friend hurts you, will you boil over with anger or overflow with the grace and forgiveness of Christ? I hope you’ll take some time to search your heart this weekend and ask the Lord for help where it’s needed.

If you’d like to hear more from the True Girl podcast or share it with a tween girl in your life, you can find us at MyTrueGirl.com. [Feel free to add any other True Girl promo here, Dannah!]

Next up, we’ll hear part of a conversation between Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and Kelly Needham. Kelly is a wife and mom, the founder of Teach Equip, and author of the book Friendish. Today, she’s sharing about speaking the truth in love, which is our second tip for loving a difficult friend! I know you might be squirming your seat right now because confrontation just isn’t your thing. I hear you! It can be uncomfortable, but the truth is sometimes it’s the most faithful thing a friend can do. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Sometimes when you have a good friendship, you have to say the hard things. What does Proverbs talk about? “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”

Kelly Needham: Yes, wounds.

Nancy: Talk about that for a minute, because that doesn’t sound like something we’re eager to have, necessarily.

Kelly: That’s the part of friendship that no one really wants, because it’s never fun.

My friend Jessica is a super sweet friend. There was a time we went to eat, and we just were catching up. Then we had this awkward transition. She went to the bathroom and came back and sat down and essentially said, “I need to talk to you about something.” Her whole demeanor had changed, and I just knew . . .

Nancy: Something’s coming.

Kelly: “Oh no!” Bracing myself internally for this conversation, I had no idea that anything was wrong. Essentially, she had shared with me that she had had her feelings hurt by some recent conversations we’d had. She’d been in a hard season. She had shared a few things with me, and it was in a realm of study that I was currently studying the Scriptures and learning and I was excited to write about it. I’m a very verbal processor.

So here she had shared something going on in her life, and I essentially just gave her a mini-sermon at the time. I wasn’t thinking about it, because she’s such a good friend. So I’m just talking, and it really shut her off. That happened more than once, and she was starting to not look forward to our times together, which is how she knew, “I need to say something.”

You know, my conscience hadn’t been awakened yet, because I just was blind to that. I couldn’t see it. She had the courage and the gentleness to speak.

Nancy: It took courage.

Kelly: Yes, it did. Well, I found out she went to the bathroom to get the courage. She was so nervous.

Nancy: But how much easier would it be in a situation like that to just disconnect, ignore it, move off, say, “Look, we’re not going to be friends.”

Kelly: That’s what most people do, honestly.

Nancy: But she pressed into it.

Kelly: She pressed in, because she valued me and valued our friendship. And she communicated that. She essentially said, “This friendship is important to me.” And she shared it with me very gently. I mean, she was aware that would be hurtful. She gave me specific examples, and as soon as she did, I could see it. I knew what moments she was talking about.

That has produced so much fruit in my life and has just given me a better category for . . . sometimes the best thing my friends need is a listening ear. As somebody who likes to teach what I’m learning, it was a good thing for me to be wounded in that way.

Nancy: Lead with compassion.

Kelly: Yes. I think about it a lot when I’m with somebody new, and they might be sharing a struggle they’re in, and I’m thinking, Oh, I’ve been studying that! I want to tell them. I have a check in my spirit from our conversation, to just pray and say, “God, is that what this person needs today? Is for me to teach them all the things I know about that topic in the Bible?” Maybe not; maybe I just need to listen and go, “Let’s go grab coffee and do something fun.” Maybe we just need something lighthearted. 

Now, I trust our friendship even more, because I know I don’t have to guess with her. I know if something’s wrong, she’ll tell me. It built trust in our friendship. I grew. She helped me become a better friend to her and to other people. That’s a faithful wound from a friend. We all are going to face moments where we’re the ones needing to receive that or we’re the ones who might need to say that to foster unity in our communities and in our friendships.

Nancy: That’s what Paul talks about in Ephesians chapter 4, where he’s talking about unity in the body. As part of that he says, “Don’t lie to one another.” I’m thinking, Well, I don’t lie. Well, how often do we really lie in friendships by harboring something. We’re nursing some hurt or wound in our hearts, or we see something in that person’s life that we know is making them less effective.

I had a friend who’s now with the Lord who used to say, “The last guy to know he has a rip in his jacket is the guy who has it on.”

Kelly: That’s right.

Nancy: We call them blind spots. What does Paul say in Ephesians 4? “Don’t lie to one another; instead, speak the truth in love.”

Kelly: That’s right. That’s part of the function of our communities. We all have those blind spots, so we all need one another. That should actually make us feel safer. You know, if I have spinach in my teeth, my good friends are going to tell me! I feel more comfortable with them. I hope that I would have the courage to do the same.

When we’re hurt, the same thing. Maybe it’s not a blind spot; maybe it’s actual sin, willful sin against one another. May we have the courage to speak up about that and say, “That really hurt my feelings. I want to talk to you about it, because I value our friendship.” That’s how you value friendship, is you go there.

You fight for reconciliation, and Jesus is for reconciliation in the body and for unity. But part of how unity gets there is through these moments.

In fact, I think conflict I often feel like is the immune system of the body of Christ, that when sin creeps up in our lives and in our hearts or in our relationships, these moments of speaking the truth in love, of going to the tension, of having these moments where we’re faithfully wounding one another, it’s getting the infection. It’s dealing with the sin and creating a more healthy body of Christ.

Nancy: And not just in our own relationship with that person, but it may be affecting their relationship with others. This brings up Galatians 6:1. “If you see someone caught in a transgression . . .” They may know they’re there, they may not know they’re there, but you see this. “. . . you who are spiritual should restore him.” That’s the goal. We’re not trying to knock that person out or down or get rid of them. We’re trying to restore them, to set a bone that’s been broken, is the concept there. “Restore him in a spirit of gentleness.”

Kelly: That’s right.

Nancy: And this warning: “Keep watch on yourselves, lest you too be tempted.” Because the very things we’re so quick to see in other people’s lives often are the very things that we’re blind to in our own lives.

So what’s He say? “First get the log out of your own eye so that you can see clearly to help get the speck out of your brother’s eye.” We need each other. That’s the hard part of friendship, but really, really important.

Kelly: Really necessary, really important. Somebody might be listening and going, “Well, there’s a conversation that I know I need to have.” We have just made it unavoidable for you, because we’re talking about it. Take courage and take heart that that’s true love for somebody when you are willing to do that, because you’re sacrificing your own comfort to love somebody else in a way that in the moment. They’re probably not going to be happy with you. It’s hard for any of us to hear that. So you’re really sacrificially loving somebody else.

That’s helped me to enter into those moments, to go, “I want to be a sacrificial, loving person like Christ was for me, so I will sacrifice my comfort. Jesus, help me in that moment.” It puts us on our knees when we have to go into that, which again, like you said, is such a blessing to cause us to need Jesus. It causes us to humble ourselves.

Nancy: And if you’re on the receiving end of that, remember, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” This is an expression of God’s love for me and His friendship.

Dannah: Kelly Needham and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth on speaking the truth in love. Maybe that conversation brought a particular friendship to mind. Is there a conversation you need to have? If so, I hope this episode prompts you to love your friend by speaking the truth. 

To wrap up today’s program, we’re talking about one last way to love a friend when it’s hard: remembering the gospel. You’re about to hear a powerful word from radio host, pastor, and Revive Our Hearts board member, Chris Brooks. It’s a portion of a sermon he gave titled "Love Is a Verb" from 1 Peter chapter 1. Let’s listen.

Pastor Chris Brooks: Verse 22, let’s read verses 22–25 together. Now here, his message is clear: You’ll love one another.

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.

Do you feel where Peter’s confidence is at? You see where his confidence is at. He says, “Everything around us is going to fade. Everything around us is going to die. But the Word of the Lord remains forever.”

Well, let’s go back to verse 22. “Having purified your souls by obedience to the truth.” Here Peter is saying, “Because you’ve put your trust in Him, and you’ve diligently surrendered your heart to the truth of Scripture, you’ve purified your soul. And what is produced in you when your hope really is in Jesus, is this love, this brotherly love, this phileo, this brotherly love. It’s love that is not casual. It is love that is not shallow. But it is love for one another that is earnest from a pure heart.”

Now this commandment that he’s giving us, this imperative that he’s given us—to love differently than the world loves. Or maybe to put it a different way: Love differently than you did before you knew Jesus. The quality, the substance, the commitment, and the sacrifice of our love should be exponentially different now that we have put our trust and our faith in Him.

Now, just let me tell you that this really is the first time in Peter’s letters so far where he’s dealing with how we’re supposed to treat one another. Up until this point he’s been dealing with how we’re supposed to operate in the world.

Now, think about this for just a moment: How should we love those who are outside of the Church? How should we love those who have a different faith than us? How should we love those who have a different worldview than us? A different value system than us? A different political aspiration than us? How should we love them?

Well, I’ll tell you how we should love them. Keep your finger there and go to Luke’s gospel—Luke chapter 6. We’re just dealing with two verses—verses 32 and 35. The question on the table is: How should we love those outside of the household of faith? How should we treat and love those who have opposing worldviews than us, who seem to be our enemies?

Look at verse 32: “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.”

Verse 35: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and evil.”

This, my friends, is the challenge of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. This is the dangerous proposition of the gospel. This is the call of Christianity, that we are not a self-centered people who love like those who don’t have a Savior.

No. Our Savior went to the cross . . . while we were yet sinners. Don’t ever misunderstand the gospel. It was not just the Centurions or the Pharisees or Sadducees or Sanhedrin that hung Him to that cross. While we were yet enemies to the cross, He loved us. And He calls us to love our enemies.

Again, a reminder, an inconvenient truth, a reminder that none of us want to hear because what we really want to hear Jesus say is, “Conquer your enemy.” What we really want to hear Jesus say is, “Go ye therefore and defeat those who have a different worldview than you. Crush those who have different political aspirations than what you have.” That’s what we really want to hear. But that’s not the Savior we serve.

There’s this old saying that, “In the beginning God created man, and man has been returning the favor ever since.” We typically recreate God in our own image and likeness, but that’s not the call of the gospel.

The call of the gospel is to be conformed to His image and likeness. As we put our hope in Him, we should love like Him. Every time you go into the Word, there should be this stinging reminder that, “God, I am so far from this.”

I’m not preaching this to you because I have arrived. I’m preaching this to you because it is true. It is the Word of God.

Now, here’s the question on the table: If He would challenge us to love the world that way, what do you think our love for one another should look like? What do you think He’s driving home on how you and I are to love one another?

Let’s just leave this for just a moment and go back to 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 22. He says this, “Love one another earnestly from a pure heart.”

Now, what do you think that must mean in light of how he’s telling us to love those who are opposed to us? How much more should we be willing to give of ourselves, commit ourselves, show grace to one another, patience with one another?

My fear for the Church in this hour is not that we’re going to lose people because of our moral standards. My fear for the Church in this hour is that we’re going to lose people because we’re unwilling to love one another the way Christ has called us.

Dannah: Pastor Chris Brooks on showing Christlike love toward our enemies. This is a hard command, but it’s possible when we remember the gospel. Christ died for us while we were his enemies! Maybe pause for a moment today and reflect on the weightiness of that. The more we meditate on the gospel, the better we’ll love. 

We’re able to share practical teaching like you heard today because listeners like you give to support Revive Our Hearts. Would you consider making a donation today? When you do, we’d love to send you our six-week Bible study called Ruth: Experiencing a Life Restored. To give and request that resource, visit ReviveOurHearts.com. 

Next weekend, join us as we talk about Christian community—one of the Lord’s sweetest gifts this side of heaven! 

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time, for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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