The Fine Art of Getting Along with Others by Dale E. Galloway

Author:Dale E. Galloway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Self-Help / Personal Growth;FAM013000;REL012100;REL012030
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2021-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

● Principle 3 ●

Refuse to play the difficult person’s games.

Judas was one of the chosen twelve disciples that Jesus took into His confidence and inner circle. Jesus gave Judas His time and trust and poured His life and teachings into him. Added to this, He gave that disciple the same complete, unconditional love He gave to the other chosen ones. Yet Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Judas was certainly a difficult person. Yet knowing full well what Judas had done, Jesus showed love to Judas by washing his dirty feet, sharing food with him, and giving him an honored place at the table (see John 13). Jesus, who was in control of Himself, refused to play Judas’s kind of destructive game.

Difficult people, by their very behavior, try to manipulate us or gain control over us. Their variety of games is endless and can consume an enormous amount of time and energy. Simply refuse to play the game. You do have a choice. Just exercise that power.

Any person in authority over other people takes some abuse for being in that position. The larger the responsibility, the more abuse he receives. My own father, a very successful administrator over 140 churches in Ohio for thirty years, refused to play the difficult person’s game.

In my adult life I was surprised to learn of two pastors in Dad’s district who for years created a small pocket of opposition to his leadership. I was five years of age when Dad first became a district superintendent. In all my boyhood and teen years I never once heard him say anything derogatory about either of these men. In fact, when they got into difficulty in their local churches, my father, knowing full well that they had voted against his continuation as district leader, went to bat for them in seeing that they were placed in new pastorates at different churches. Dad’s way to face destructive behavior directed at him was to overcome it by doing good. This is exactly what, as Christians, Jesus asks us to do.

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