Today we are walking in: DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE PART 5
Yechezq’el (Ezekiel) 36:26
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”
HEART
Today we look to the word—HEART—H3820—leb—the inner person, mind, will, understanding, inclination, courage, intention, thought, or center of a person’s desires and decisions. This is important because difficult behavior is often merely the outward manifestation of something taking place within the heart. Human beings can address behavior, establish boundaries, speak truth, offer correction, and extend love, but only YAHUAH can reach into the deepest places of a person and transform the heart itself.
The Torah Testifies……….
Devariym (Deuteronomy) 6:5
“And thou shalt love YAHUAH thy Elohiym with all thine heart H3824, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
Devariym (Deuteronomy) 8:2
“And thou shalt remember all the way which YAHUAH thy Elohiym led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, H3824 whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.”
Devariym (Deuteronomy) 6:5
“And thou shalt love YAHUAH thy Elohiym with all thine heart H3824, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
Devariym (Deuteronomy) 8:2
“And thou shalt remember all the way which YAHUAH thy Elohiym led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, H3824 whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.”
The Prophets Proclaim………
Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) 17:10
“I YAHUAH search the heart, H3820 I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
Yechezq’el (Ezekiel) 36:26
“A new heart H3820 also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.”
Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) 17:10
“I YAHUAH search the heart, H3820 I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
Yechezq’el (Ezekiel) 36:26
“A new heart H3820 also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.”
The Writings Witness………
Tehilliym (Psalms) 51:10
“Create in me a clean heart, H3820 O Elohiym; and renew a right spirit within me.”
Mishlei (Proverbs) 21:1
“The king’s heart H3820 is in the hand of YAHUAH, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”
Tehilliym (Psalms) 51:10
“Create in me a clean heart, H3820 O Elohiym; and renew a right spirit within me.”
Mishlei (Proverbs) 21:1
“The king’s heart H3820 is in the hand of YAHUAH, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”
One of the most exhausting things you can do in a relationship is assume responsibility for changing another human being. You see what they are doing wrong, you recognize the damage their behavior is creating, and because you love them, you begin believing that if you explain it enough, demonstrate it enough, correct it enough, forgive it enough, or sacrifice enough, eventually you can make them change. Before long, their transformation has quietly become your personal assignment.
But there is a problem with that assignment.
YAHUAH never gave it to you.
You can influence people. You can teach people. You can encourage people. You can confront people. You can establish boundaries with people. You can model righteousness before people. You can pray for people. But you cannot reach inside another person’s heart and force transformation.
That belongs to YAHUAH.
Write this down: I am responsible for my obedience. I am not responsible for another person’s transformation.
Understanding that truth will deliver you from carrying weight that was never yours.
YOU CANNOT FORCE SOMEBODY TO WANT WHAT YOU WANT FOR THEM
One of the painful realities of loving people is discovering that sometimes you can want better for somebody more than they currently want better for themselves. You can see their potential. You can recognize the consequences of their choices. You can see exactly where the road they are traveling leads, and everything inside you wants to grab them and turn them around.
So you talk.
Then you talk again.
Then you explain your previous explanation.
Then you find another way to explain the explanation you already explained.
And eventually you become frustrated because nothing changes.
The problem is not necessarily that you failed to communicate clearly. The problem may simply be that the person has not chosen change.
Write this down: Information can be offered, but transformation cannot be forced.
YAHUAH Himself gives human beings the ability to choose. If YAHUAH allows people to make choices, even choices He does not approve of, you cannot appoint yourself ruler over another person’s will.
That does not mean you become indifferent. It means you understand the limits of your responsibility.
STOP CONFUSING LOVE WITH CONTROL
Sometimes control disguises itself as concern.
We tell ourselves, “I am only doing this because I love them.”
Perhaps you do love them. But love and control can become tangled together when we begin believing that loving somebody means managing their decisions, preventing every consequence, correcting every mistake, or constantly pushing them toward the outcome we believe is best.
Love speaks truth.
Love gives wisdom.
Love warns when necessary.
Love establishes boundaries.
But love also understands when to step back and allow YAHUAH to deal with somebody.
Write this down: Love can advise without controlling. Love can care without carrying. Love can pray without manipulating.
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is stop interfering with a process YAHUAH may be using to teach somebody what your words could not.
SOME PEOPLE HAVE TO EXPERIENCE WHAT YOU CANNOT EXPLAIN
This can be difficult for people who are naturally helpers. You see the danger before the other person sees it, and you desperately want to protect them.
But there are lessons that cannot always be transferred through conversation.
Sometimes experience becomes the teacher.
Consider the prodigal son. His father did not chase him into the far country. He did not follow him around trying to manage his money. He did not continuously rescue him from every consequence of his choices. The son eventually reached a place where Scripture says “he came to himself.”
That moment mattered.
Sometimes people need room to come to themselves.
If you continually rescue somebody from every consequence, you may unintentionally interfere with the very consequence YAHUAH could use to awaken them.
Write this down: Do not become somebody’s permanent escape route from lessons they refuse to learn.
Compassion does not require enabling.
Grace does not require participation in dysfunction.
Forgiveness does not require removing every consequence.
You can love somebody deeply and still allow them to experience the results of their decisions.
PRAY WHERE YOU CANNOT REACH
This is where prayer becomes powerful.
There are places in another person’s heart you cannot enter. There are conversations they will not hear from you. There are wounds you cannot heal. There are lies they believe that your explanations cannot dismantle. There are patterns so deeply rooted that human persuasion cannot remove them.
But YAHUAH can reach where you cannot.
Mishlei 21:1 says that even the king’s heart is in the hand of YAHUAH, and He turns it wherever He wills.
If YAHUAH can deal with kings, rulers, nations, and generations, He can deal with the difficult person in your life.
Your responsibility is not to become the Ruach Ha’Qodesh for somebody else.
Let YAHUAH be YAHUAH.
Write this down: When my influence reaches its limit, YAHUAH’s authority does not.
That should give you peace.
YAHUSHA PRAYED FOR PEOPLE WHO WERE HURTING HIM
Luke 23:34 gives us one of the most extraordinary demonstrations of this principle. While Yahusha was being crucified, He said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
Think about the circumstances surrounding that prayer. Yahusha was not praying for people who had apologized. He was not praying for people who had suddenly recognized their wrongdoing. He was praying while the offense was happening.
That is another level of spiritual maturity.
Yahusha understood something we must learn: the behavior of another person does not have to determine the condition of your heart.
Write this down: Prayer keeps another person’s behavior from becoming poison inside of me.
When you pray for difficult people, prayer is not merely working on them.
Prayer is working on you.
It keeps bitterness from building a house in your heart. It keeps revenge from becoming your obsession. It prevents another person’s dysfunction from changing your character.
PRAYER DOES NOT MEAN PRETENDING THEY DID NOTHING WRONG
We need to make this clear because believers sometimes misunderstand forgiveness and prayer.
Praying for somebody does not require you to call wrong right.
You can pray for somebody and still acknowledge that they hurt you.
You can forgive somebody and still establish a boundary.
You can desire their restoration and still decide that they cannot presently have the same access to you.
You can pray for somebody from a distance.
Write this down: Forgiveness concerns the condition of my heart; access concerns the wisdom governing my relationship.
Those are not the same thing.
Yahusha taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, but He never taught us to surrender discernment.
You do not demonstrate forgiveness by repeatedly placing yourself in unnecessary harm.
STOP MAKING THEIR CHANGE THE CONDITION OF YOUR PEACE
This one is big.
Some people have unknowingly made their peace dependent upon another person’s transformation.
“I will have peace when they apologize.”
“I will have peace when they finally understand.”
“I will have peace when they admit what they did.”
“I will have peace when they treat me differently.”
Then what happens if they never do?
Do they get to hold your peace hostage forever?
Absolutely not.
Write this down: My peace cannot depend upon somebody else’s maturity.
There may be people who never apologize correctly. There may be people who rewrite the story to protect themselves. There may be people who refuse accountability. There may be people who remain convinced that they did nothing wrong.
You cannot spend your life waiting for somebody else’s revelation before you permit yourself to heal.
Release them to YAHUAH.
PRAY FOR THEIR HEART, NOT JUST THEIR BEHAVIOR
When difficult people hurt us, our prayers can easily become focused entirely upon how their behavior affects us.
“YAHUAH, make them stop.”
“YAHUAH, make them leave me alone.”
“YAHUAH, show them they are wrong.”
And depending upon the situation, those may reflect legitimate desires for relief or justice. But mature intercession eventually goes deeper.
“YAHUAH, heal whatever is producing this behavior.”
“YAHUAH, expose the wounds influencing their choices.”
“YAHUAH, reveal truth to them.”
“YAHUAH, give them a heart capable of receiving correction.”
“YAHUAH, deliver them from whatever keeps producing destruction.”
That is different.
Now you are not simply asking YAHUAH to make them easier for you to tolerate. You are asking Him to transform them for their own good and His glory.
Yechezq’el 36:26 says, “A new heart also will I give you.”
Notice who says I WILL GIVE.
YAHUAH.
Not you.
You cannot manufacture somebody’s new heart.
SOMETIMES YAHUAH MAY CHANGE YOU FIRST
Now here is the part we may not like.
You begin praying, “YAHUAH, change them,” and suddenly YAHUAH starts talking about you.
Wait a minute, YAHUAH. That was not the prayer request. 😂
But He begins exposing your impatience. Your need to control. Your pride. Your unresolved offense. Your tendency to assume motives. Your communication patterns. Your expectations.
Why?
Because sometimes the difficult person is not the only person YAHUAH intends to develop through the relationship.
Write this down: I cannot ask YAHUAH to examine their heart while refusing to let Him examine mine.
Tehilliym 139:23-24 says, “Search me, O El, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me.”
That is a mature prayer.
You can recognize somebody else’s wrongdoing while still allowing YAHUAH to correct anything wrong within you.
Their wrong does not automatically make everything about your response right.
RELEASE THE NEED TO BE VINDICATED
Sometimes our desire for somebody to change is actually connected to our desire to be vindicated.
We want them to finally say, “You were right.”
We imagine the day they come back and admit everything.
And maybe that happens.
Maybe it does not.
But your healing cannot depend upon that moment.
YAHUAH knows the truth even when people distort it.
YAHUAH saw what happened even when nobody else saw it.
YAHUAH heard the conversation.
YAHUAH knows the motives.
You do not need to destroy yourself trying to make everybody see what YAHUAH already knows.
Write this down: When YAHUAH knows the truth, I do not have to exhaust myself proving it to everybody else.
Let Him vindicate you in His way and His time.
DO YOUR PART—THEN RELEASE THE OUTCOME
Romans 12:18 gives us tremendous wisdom: “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.”
Notice the language: as much as lieth in you.
Scripture acknowledges that peace has two sides.
You can apologize for your part.
You can communicate respectfully.
You can forgive.
You can pray.
You can offer reconciliation where appropriate.
You can establish healthy boundaries.
But you cannot perform another person’s part for them.
Write this down: Reconciliation requires participation; forgiveness does not.
You can forgive somebody who refuses reconciliation because forgiveness is something you surrender before YAHUAH. But healthy reconciliation requires truth, responsibility, willingness, and participation from both sides.
Stop trying to build a two-person bridge by yourself.
WHEN YOU RELEASE THEM, YOU RELEASE YOURSELF
There is extraordinary freedom in finally saying, “YAHUAH, I give this person back to You.”
Not because you stopped caring.
Not because you want something bad to happen to them.
Not because you have become cold.
But because you finally understand that YAHUAH loves them more perfectly than you ever could.
You can stop monitoring their transformation.
You can stop checking whether they finally learned their lesson.
You can stop arranging circumstances to teach them something.
You can stop rehearsing imaginary conversations where you finally make them understand.
Release them.
Write this down: Surrender means I stop trying to occupy YAHUAH’s position in another person’s life.
And when you do that, something beautiful happens.
Your hands become free.
Your mind becomes quieter.
Your emotional energy returns.
Your prayers become cleaner.
You can love without controlling.
You can care without carrying.
You can intercede without obsessing.
You can forgive without surrendering wisdom.
And you can continue your assignment.
DECLARE IT
Declare this over yourself: “YAHUAH, I release every person I have been trying to change. I surrender their heart, their decisions, their behavior, their healing, and their transformation into Your hands. Show me what belongs to me and what belongs to You. Give me wisdom to speak when I should speak, remain silent when I should remain silent, help when I should help, and step back when I should step back.”
Declare that you will no longer confuse love with control. You will not carry responsibility YAHUAH never assigned to you. You will pray without manipulating, forgive without enabling, love without abandoning discernment, and establish boundaries without hatred.
You release the need for everybody to understand you.
You release the need for everybody to apologize.
You release the need to witness somebody’s consequences.
You release the need to control the outcome.
You place difficult people into the hands of YAHUAH.
And you trust Him.
Because only YAHUAH can take a heart of stone and make it a heart of flesh. Only YAHUAH can reach places your words cannot reach. Only YAHUAH can reveal what somebody refuses to see. Only YAHUAH can produce genuine transformation.
Your assignment is to love, obey, pray, discern, and remain faithful.
Their heart belongs to YAHUAH.
THE FINAL LESSON: STAY FOCUSED ON YOUR ASSIGNMENT
Now we are ready for the final part.
Because after you have learned that people are not the true enemy, mastered your emotions, established boundaries, responded with wisdom, and released people from your need to change them, there is one final question:
What are you going to do with all the energy you used to spend fighting them?
You are going to put it back into your assignment.
Some difficult people are not trying to destroy you nearly as much as distraction is trying to delay you.
Nehemiah understood this.
Sanballat called.
Tobiah criticized.
Enemies threatened.
People lied.
Opposition increased.
And Nehemiah gave one of the greatest responses to distraction recorded in Scripture:
“I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down.”
That is where we are going in PART 6—the FINAL PART: STAY FOCUSED ON YOUR YAHUAH-GIVEN ASSIGNMENT.
We are going to close this teaching by learning how to stop giving critics, difficult people, unnecessary arguments, and offense the time and energy that belong to your purpose.
Because sometimes the greatest victory over a difficult person is not defeating them in an argument.
It is finishing your assignment without ever coming down from the wall.
But there is a problem with that assignment.
YAHUAH never gave it to you.
You can influence people. You can teach people. You can encourage people. You can confront people. You can establish boundaries with people. You can model righteousness before people. You can pray for people. But you cannot reach inside another person’s heart and force transformation.
That belongs to YAHUAH.
Write this down: I am responsible for my obedience. I am not responsible for another person’s transformation.
Understanding that truth will deliver you from carrying weight that was never yours.
YOU CANNOT FORCE SOMEBODY TO WANT WHAT YOU WANT FOR THEM
One of the painful realities of loving people is discovering that sometimes you can want better for somebody more than they currently want better for themselves. You can see their potential. You can recognize the consequences of their choices. You can see exactly where the road they are traveling leads, and everything inside you wants to grab them and turn them around.
So you talk.
Then you talk again.
Then you explain your previous explanation.
Then you find another way to explain the explanation you already explained.
And eventually you become frustrated because nothing changes.
The problem is not necessarily that you failed to communicate clearly. The problem may simply be that the person has not chosen change.
Write this down: Information can be offered, but transformation cannot be forced.
YAHUAH Himself gives human beings the ability to choose. If YAHUAH allows people to make choices, even choices He does not approve of, you cannot appoint yourself ruler over another person’s will.
That does not mean you become indifferent. It means you understand the limits of your responsibility.
STOP CONFUSING LOVE WITH CONTROL
Sometimes control disguises itself as concern.
We tell ourselves, “I am only doing this because I love them.”
Perhaps you do love them. But love and control can become tangled together when we begin believing that loving somebody means managing their decisions, preventing every consequence, correcting every mistake, or constantly pushing them toward the outcome we believe is best.
Love speaks truth.
Love gives wisdom.
Love warns when necessary.
Love establishes boundaries.
But love also understands when to step back and allow YAHUAH to deal with somebody.
Write this down: Love can advise without controlling. Love can care without carrying. Love can pray without manipulating.
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is stop interfering with a process YAHUAH may be using to teach somebody what your words could not.
SOME PEOPLE HAVE TO EXPERIENCE WHAT YOU CANNOT EXPLAIN
This can be difficult for people who are naturally helpers. You see the danger before the other person sees it, and you desperately want to protect them.
But there are lessons that cannot always be transferred through conversation.
Sometimes experience becomes the teacher.
Consider the prodigal son. His father did not chase him into the far country. He did not follow him around trying to manage his money. He did not continuously rescue him from every consequence of his choices. The son eventually reached a place where Scripture says “he came to himself.”
That moment mattered.
Sometimes people need room to come to themselves.
If you continually rescue somebody from every consequence, you may unintentionally interfere with the very consequence YAHUAH could use to awaken them.
Write this down: Do not become somebody’s permanent escape route from lessons they refuse to learn.
Compassion does not require enabling.
Grace does not require participation in dysfunction.
Forgiveness does not require removing every consequence.
You can love somebody deeply and still allow them to experience the results of their decisions.
PRAY WHERE YOU CANNOT REACH
This is where prayer becomes powerful.
There are places in another person’s heart you cannot enter. There are conversations they will not hear from you. There are wounds you cannot heal. There are lies they believe that your explanations cannot dismantle. There are patterns so deeply rooted that human persuasion cannot remove them.
But YAHUAH can reach where you cannot.
Mishlei 21:1 says that even the king’s heart is in the hand of YAHUAH, and He turns it wherever He wills.
If YAHUAH can deal with kings, rulers, nations, and generations, He can deal with the difficult person in your life.
Your responsibility is not to become the Ruach Ha’Qodesh for somebody else.
Let YAHUAH be YAHUAH.
Write this down: When my influence reaches its limit, YAHUAH’s authority does not.
That should give you peace.
YAHUSHA PRAYED FOR PEOPLE WHO WERE HURTING HIM
Luke 23:34 gives us one of the most extraordinary demonstrations of this principle. While Yahusha was being crucified, He said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
Think about the circumstances surrounding that prayer. Yahusha was not praying for people who had apologized. He was not praying for people who had suddenly recognized their wrongdoing. He was praying while the offense was happening.
That is another level of spiritual maturity.
Yahusha understood something we must learn: the behavior of another person does not have to determine the condition of your heart.
Write this down: Prayer keeps another person’s behavior from becoming poison inside of me.
When you pray for difficult people, prayer is not merely working on them.
Prayer is working on you.
It keeps bitterness from building a house in your heart. It keeps revenge from becoming your obsession. It prevents another person’s dysfunction from changing your character.
PRAYER DOES NOT MEAN PRETENDING THEY DID NOTHING WRONG
We need to make this clear because believers sometimes misunderstand forgiveness and prayer.
Praying for somebody does not require you to call wrong right.
You can pray for somebody and still acknowledge that they hurt you.
You can forgive somebody and still establish a boundary.
You can desire their restoration and still decide that they cannot presently have the same access to you.
You can pray for somebody from a distance.
Write this down: Forgiveness concerns the condition of my heart; access concerns the wisdom governing my relationship.
Those are not the same thing.
Yahusha taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, but He never taught us to surrender discernment.
You do not demonstrate forgiveness by repeatedly placing yourself in unnecessary harm.
STOP MAKING THEIR CHANGE THE CONDITION OF YOUR PEACE
This one is big.
Some people have unknowingly made their peace dependent upon another person’s transformation.
“I will have peace when they apologize.”
“I will have peace when they finally understand.”
“I will have peace when they admit what they did.”
“I will have peace when they treat me differently.”
Then what happens if they never do?
Do they get to hold your peace hostage forever?
Absolutely not.
Write this down: My peace cannot depend upon somebody else’s maturity.
There may be people who never apologize correctly. There may be people who rewrite the story to protect themselves. There may be people who refuse accountability. There may be people who remain convinced that they did nothing wrong.
You cannot spend your life waiting for somebody else’s revelation before you permit yourself to heal.
Release them to YAHUAH.
PRAY FOR THEIR HEART, NOT JUST THEIR BEHAVIOR
When difficult people hurt us, our prayers can easily become focused entirely upon how their behavior affects us.
“YAHUAH, make them stop.”
“YAHUAH, make them leave me alone.”
“YAHUAH, show them they are wrong.”
And depending upon the situation, those may reflect legitimate desires for relief or justice. But mature intercession eventually goes deeper.
“YAHUAH, heal whatever is producing this behavior.”
“YAHUAH, expose the wounds influencing their choices.”
“YAHUAH, reveal truth to them.”
“YAHUAH, give them a heart capable of receiving correction.”
“YAHUAH, deliver them from whatever keeps producing destruction.”
That is different.
Now you are not simply asking YAHUAH to make them easier for you to tolerate. You are asking Him to transform them for their own good and His glory.
Yechezq’el 36:26 says, “A new heart also will I give you.”
Notice who says I WILL GIVE.
YAHUAH.
Not you.
You cannot manufacture somebody’s new heart.
SOMETIMES YAHUAH MAY CHANGE YOU FIRST
Now here is the part we may not like.
You begin praying, “YAHUAH, change them,” and suddenly YAHUAH starts talking about you.
Wait a minute, YAHUAH. That was not the prayer request. 😂
But He begins exposing your impatience. Your need to control. Your pride. Your unresolved offense. Your tendency to assume motives. Your communication patterns. Your expectations.
Why?
Because sometimes the difficult person is not the only person YAHUAH intends to develop through the relationship.
Write this down: I cannot ask YAHUAH to examine their heart while refusing to let Him examine mine.
Tehilliym 139:23-24 says, “Search me, O El, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me.”
That is a mature prayer.
You can recognize somebody else’s wrongdoing while still allowing YAHUAH to correct anything wrong within you.
Their wrong does not automatically make everything about your response right.
RELEASE THE NEED TO BE VINDICATED
Sometimes our desire for somebody to change is actually connected to our desire to be vindicated.
We want them to finally say, “You were right.”
We imagine the day they come back and admit everything.
And maybe that happens.
Maybe it does not.
But your healing cannot depend upon that moment.
YAHUAH knows the truth even when people distort it.
YAHUAH saw what happened even when nobody else saw it.
YAHUAH heard the conversation.
YAHUAH knows the motives.
You do not need to destroy yourself trying to make everybody see what YAHUAH already knows.
Write this down: When YAHUAH knows the truth, I do not have to exhaust myself proving it to everybody else.
Let Him vindicate you in His way and His time.
DO YOUR PART—THEN RELEASE THE OUTCOME
Romans 12:18 gives us tremendous wisdom: “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.”
Notice the language: as much as lieth in you.
Scripture acknowledges that peace has two sides.
You can apologize for your part.
You can communicate respectfully.
You can forgive.
You can pray.
You can offer reconciliation where appropriate.
You can establish healthy boundaries.
But you cannot perform another person’s part for them.
Write this down: Reconciliation requires participation; forgiveness does not.
You can forgive somebody who refuses reconciliation because forgiveness is something you surrender before YAHUAH. But healthy reconciliation requires truth, responsibility, willingness, and participation from both sides.
Stop trying to build a two-person bridge by yourself.
WHEN YOU RELEASE THEM, YOU RELEASE YOURSELF
There is extraordinary freedom in finally saying, “YAHUAH, I give this person back to You.”
Not because you stopped caring.
Not because you want something bad to happen to them.
Not because you have become cold.
But because you finally understand that YAHUAH loves them more perfectly than you ever could.
You can stop monitoring their transformation.
You can stop checking whether they finally learned their lesson.
You can stop arranging circumstances to teach them something.
You can stop rehearsing imaginary conversations where you finally make them understand.
Release them.
Write this down: Surrender means I stop trying to occupy YAHUAH’s position in another person’s life.
And when you do that, something beautiful happens.
Your hands become free.
Your mind becomes quieter.
Your emotional energy returns.
Your prayers become cleaner.
You can love without controlling.
You can care without carrying.
You can intercede without obsessing.
You can forgive without surrendering wisdom.
And you can continue your assignment.
DECLARE IT
Declare this over yourself: “YAHUAH, I release every person I have been trying to change. I surrender their heart, their decisions, their behavior, their healing, and their transformation into Your hands. Show me what belongs to me and what belongs to You. Give me wisdom to speak when I should speak, remain silent when I should remain silent, help when I should help, and step back when I should step back.”
Declare that you will no longer confuse love with control. You will not carry responsibility YAHUAH never assigned to you. You will pray without manipulating, forgive without enabling, love without abandoning discernment, and establish boundaries without hatred.
You release the need for everybody to understand you.
You release the need for everybody to apologize.
You release the need to witness somebody’s consequences.
You release the need to control the outcome.
You place difficult people into the hands of YAHUAH.
And you trust Him.
Because only YAHUAH can take a heart of stone and make it a heart of flesh. Only YAHUAH can reach places your words cannot reach. Only YAHUAH can reveal what somebody refuses to see. Only YAHUAH can produce genuine transformation.
Your assignment is to love, obey, pray, discern, and remain faithful.
Their heart belongs to YAHUAH.
THE FINAL LESSON: STAY FOCUSED ON YOUR ASSIGNMENT
Now we are ready for the final part.
Because after you have learned that people are not the true enemy, mastered your emotions, established boundaries, responded with wisdom, and released people from your need to change them, there is one final question:
What are you going to do with all the energy you used to spend fighting them?
You are going to put it back into your assignment.
Some difficult people are not trying to destroy you nearly as much as distraction is trying to delay you.
Nehemiah understood this.
Sanballat called.
Tobiah criticized.
Enemies threatened.
People lied.
Opposition increased.
And Nehemiah gave one of the greatest responses to distraction recorded in Scripture:
“I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down.”
That is where we are going in PART 6—the FINAL PART: STAY FOCUSED ON YOUR YAHUAH-GIVEN ASSIGNMENT.
We are going to close this teaching by learning how to stop giving critics, difficult people, unnecessary arguments, and offense the time and energy that belong to your purpose.
Because sometimes the greatest victory over a difficult person is not defeating them in an argument.
It is finishing your assignment without ever coming down from the wall.
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