I just want to take a moment and talk to you about the subject of navigating the journey of love. Look at somebody and say, «We have to navigate this thing,» because you know sometimes it gets cloudy, and sometimes the fog hits our relationships. In the midst of that, you need to have a voice that says, «Keep going straight, now turn to the right, and lean in.» Navigating the journey of love.
Thank you for your word, God. Speak here like you spoke to me. Do whatever you want to do and touch us. When we leave here today, may we be stronger, yes, God, in our relationships than we were when we came in. Yes, God, we give you thanks for it, in Jesus' name, amen and amen.
You may be seated today in the presence of the Lord. Navigating the journey of love. I have been discussing over the last couple of weeks topics related to relationships, cultivating the connections that God brings into our lives, friendships, family, and the love that holds all those things together. I am addressing this because I am thoroughly convinced that if we are going to build anything that will withstand the storm forms of life, if we are going to build something solid, then we are going to need love. In fact, we are going to need a black belt in love. Does anybody know what I’m talking about? You are going to need a black belt in love! It cannot be the kind of love that states, «Oh, I just feel like loving you, ” because there will be days when you don’t feel like loving anybody, right? So, gaining a black belt in love will aid us in knowing how to handle relationships and how to make them meaningful in our lives because life is about learning to love. One of the ways that God builds our love is by testing it. Does anybody know what I’m talking about? Has He ever tested your love? One of the ways He builds it and makes it stronger is by putting us through tests. God will test your ability to love by placing you around unlovable people. Has He ever done that to you? He does this by allowing what I call EDP people to come into your life. EDP—what does EDP stand for? Well, it is an acronym for Extremely Draining People. Yes! Have you ever had someone in your life who was, and you just knew when they arrived that you wanted to dart in the other direction because you knew everything in you was about to be drained? So, I’m going to give you four examples of what I mean by extremely draining people. Write this down if you will:
Number one: Difficult people are extremely draining.
Number two: Demanding people are extremely draining.
Number three: Disappointing people are extremely draining.
And the last one is: Destructive people are extremely draining.
Did you get all four of those? Difficult, demanding, disappointing, and destructive. We all encounter these four types of people in our lives, and God is saying, „Look, I want you to learn how to love all four of these categories of people.“ So together, let’s look at the first group.
Number one is difficult people. These are the ones who come into your life and are hard to work with. They are hard to get along with; they are just complicated. They are what I call tornadic people. They’re like a tornado coming in your direction, and in a moment, you can go from calm to crazy simply because of difficult people. Most of the time, they’re cranky, hateful, insulting, and they lack social skills. They are inconsiderate and unpleasable—if that’s a word, it is today! You can’t please them no matter what you do because they keep moving the target. The minute you hit it, they say, „No, that’s not right.“ Well, it was right! They also tend to be immature and possess very little self-awareness. It doesn’t matter what they do because they never have the thing in them that checks them. It’s scary to be at their mercy. The one common thread that runs through the lives of difficult people is what we call rudeness. I mean obnoxiously rude people. Look at someone and tell them, „Don’t be rude!“ It is not easy to love obnoxiously rude people.
The second type of person that falls under the EDP category is demanding people. Let’s talk about them. Demanding people are aggressive, pushy, challenging, and insistent. When you tell them no, they tell you yes, hello! And when you turn your back, they will manipulate the systems that have been set up so that we can have a real flow. Because you told them no, they’re going to fix it by manipulating the system. Whenever you are around a demanding person, you feel like you have just been manipulated. We don’t want to talk about manipulation in the church or at home or anywhere else, but it is alive and well. See, people like that…
