Every situation in Life, save a few, can be handled with a little bit of wit and humor. For those situations where wit and humor will not do the trick, we need to handle it with grace and dignity.
Especially those, where the other person is trying to be mean and offensive. Trying to empathize with the person will clearly give us an understanding as to why he or she is behaving that way. Understanding the psyche of the person will help us understand the way we need to respond.
In most of the situations, the intention is to prove superiority or to malign the reputation. Other times it is just attention seeking or a publicity stunt. Whatever the intention, we need to respond in a manner that the attention focuses on our response and stops there!! Even if there are arguments about the issue later on, our silence should speak volumes.
Dealing with difficult people, we need to be firm, be factual, get our message across clear and draw the line after a stage of conversation. This ensures that we maintain our dignity and clarity of thought.
Galatians 5:26 of the Bible tells us:
Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Conceit and Provocation rears its ugly head from the insides of a person when they think they are better than the others and they want to show it out. Envy comes from feeling lesser equipped than the other person. The three vices by themselves or put together can cause a lot of havoc and unrest in the societal circles. The social divide will only widen which would give room to unpleasantness.
“Those who are determined to be ‘offended’ will discover a provocation somewhere. ―
We may not be able to root out this malady on our own. Turn to prayer and ask the Lord to help us
PRAYER:
Dear Lord, As we communicate with each other, help us never to use words which would offend another. May we always be careful in choosing the language to convey our feelings.When others try to cause offense to us, may we hold on to silence and control our emotions. We need strength and help from you, Lord, for, we sometimes cannot refrain from throwing up our words. Forgive us Lord, for our careless and hasty words….may we forgive others too. Fill us all with Your Love.In Your Name. Amen.
God bless us with His Love.