So, if others are cranky with us, we should first check our hearts and make sure they aren't just reflecting our crankiness. But please remember, whether they are reflecting our crankiness or not, we must comply with the Golden Rule and not do to them what they are doing to us.

In all honesty, let's ask ourselves if we have a tendency to rebel against God's Word. Do we? If so, perhaps we could repent. It is a good thing to recognize this tendency to argue with the truth in ourselves. Oh, Lord, I do not want to argue with You. Give me a pliable, reachable heart that You, in Your grace, can mold and make more like You. I never want to change myself, God. But, God, I want You to change me. When Your Word tells me how I must be, I accept that fully and work diligently to pattern my behavior after the premises You have set in Your Word (even if I don't feel like it. I know, when I do that, it isn't me changing me, but You changing me. And I thank You, God. Thank You, God for helping us learn how to see properly. Take away my combative spirit and help me know the truth. Heal me, God, so that the world sees less of me and more of You.

If we maintain that all is well with us, but others are extremely rebellious and are desperately in need of God's adjusting and correcting, we are obsessing on a path of never-ending frustration. Our responsibility lies only in our own acceptance of the truth, as stated in the Word. We do not need a life of endless frustration, therefore, Jesus removes our burdens as we give them to Him. His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

When we think that others are always in need of God's adjustment, we will, then, always be under scrutiny and be needing God's adjustment (because Scripturally God will do to us what we do to others). God wants all infestation removed, so even our rebellious and obsessing thoughts about others needing adjustment, must be given up. Otherwise, God will allow us to be tormented and we'll be wondering how people could be so mean to us.

Now what can we do about this problem where we see that others are always in need of God's adjustment? Trust. Trust that God is adjusting them and we do not need to help Him out on this. It is, in fact, our choosing to help Him that is causing US to be criticized and put down. God gave us free will so we can choose to “help” Him if we feel we must. But He will allow tormentors in order to help us reconsider our position.

We must get humble with God and adjust our attitude so that we can, at last, hear the truth the Word is telling us. Our hearts need to get out of the driver's seat so that we can be “Altared” by God. We must get humble and down on our knees and let God know we are perplexed about other people's behavior, but we are willing for Him to look deep into OUR souls and make adjustments. We are willing to believe that if we drop our condemnation and criticism (even if the other party “justly deserves it,” according to our perception), we are open to God's healing spirit soothing OUR souls. Is it worth it to us to try this? Or would we rather continue battling and reaching for the ever-elusive “win” we can put on our trophy kept on a shelf above our beds as we slumber in this world, refusing to wake up and smell the coffee God is brewing for us that will heal US from OUR pain.

Is it really so important that we have to be right all the time? Think about it. How often does our “rightness” get in the way of other people's peace of mind (and our own)? How often does our rightness (even justifiable rightness) drive a hard wedge between us and another person? If we are “right” then they are wrong and we have judged them so. If God's truth is “right” that what we do to others, He will do to us, then we can expect that someone else is going to tell us we are wrong. How will we handle that? Chances are good we won't be very pleased with that judgment and possibly might start cycling right back into judgment, judgment, judgment (which circles right back and bites us in the end).

Let's talk about the importance we place on convincing other people we are right. The only reason it would be so important to correct those who are “wrong” is that we do not think God can handle other people. Or worse, we think we are God's special darlings, upon whom He has bestowed so much wisdom and enlightenment that we are appointed to correct all those in “error.” Now, if we don't think God can handle other people, God, knowing our hearts, will let us know (through the other people), that He can't handle us. Everything must be based on God's truth, not our own.

Our “truth” is: people need our adjustment. God's truth is: He wants us to love others as we love ourselves. Again, if we love others only if they obey us, then we have loved conditionally and will be loved conditionally. It is simple, isn't it? If we can grasp that what we give is what we receive, we will be on the road to a life of joy, not sorrow; peace not battles; love, not hate; and compassion, not indifference.

If we claim to love people and even speak well of people, but have threads of detestation running through our hearts, God knows the threads of detestation running through our hearts must be eliminated and has people express that to us in mighty uncomfortable ways. Because we are speaking well of people and never show how we really feel, we may even convince others to believe us when we say, “I never do anything wrong, but God keeps harassing and testing me by bringing different people into my life who seem to do nothing but irritate me. I don't deserve this treatment.”

Of course we don't deserve this treatment. No one does. This is God's way of saying that He wants us to have a pure heart, not a heart that detests, while we have only a surface façade that pretends all is well with our world and our perception of God's children. Pretending isn't acceptable to God. He wants us to really love His kids. And He, being our Almighty God, has set up the world in a way that will accomplish this goal.

We need to remember that the heart is not changed in the twinkling of an eye. It takes work to change it. But it must be changed in order to see the truth that God will do to us what we do to others (even if we only think badly about others). God's Holy Spirit digs deep into our souls and ferrets out dark spots that need the light of Christ to shine them away. God's other children on this planet are the tools by which He shows us our deepest and darkest selves. We often have no interest in this self-introspection, therefore, even if we were attempting to do this all by ourselves by isolating ourselves in a cave (or a cave-like environment), we would invariably fail. That is because we prefer to leave things buried and forgotten deep within. We would come down from our cave in the mountain and find ourselves irritated to no end by God's messed up children. We have no desire to unearth our crud and disgusting beliefs we have about our fellow travelers on this planet, and would only be fooling ourselves, as we attempted to attain “enlightenment” by ourselves in the cave.

God does not want us to go through our lives with deep veins of dark carnal thoughts, so established and set in us that we think everything and everyone is really the way we perceive. He uses people to come at us with every button-pushing device known to man. They find ways to get to even the most sophisticated and proper of God's children. We are not immune to their devious and wicked tactics, for deep in our hearts resides a dark thread that God would like to eliminate.

What often happens, though, is that we choose to ignore, run from, fight with or try to outwit the very people God has sent to reflect our hearts' dark spots. Instead of becoming contrite and humble, forgiving and taking our burdens to the Lord, we lash back at these seemingly rude and persistently hateful people. We cry out to God for mercy but receive none because mercy is not what we are giving. We even consider the possibility of doing away with ourselves—all because we do not want to see and deal with the dross God is dredging up within us.

Go ahead. Be willing to take an honest look within. While painful, it isn't difficult, once we overcome our initial fear and resentment of facing reality. He will show us what we're willing to see. We complicate something that God has already made a simple provision for. We do not need to go to psychiatrists or self-help groups. We do not need to buy complex texts that explain the deepest workings of the mind. Just step outside for a few minutes. God will have people coming up to you, drawn as if by a magnet, who will irritate the hell out of you. Then, go into your holy chamber, kneel humbly before God and forgive like you've never forgiven before. When we do this, we grant healing and forgiveness which, according to God's rules, will be given back to us.

God sends the people we need into our lives. When we choose to “punish” them because of their evil deeds, we are denying our own position in the whole of God's plan for us. He sent them so that WE might be changed and healed. He did not send them so that we might change and heal them. Although, in the process of our healing, they, too, can be healed, that isn't what is primarily going on. Their healing must never be our concern. Our healing must be our priority. We must take the mote out of OUR eye. WE want to be more like Christ. We do not want to attempt to sit on God's throne, judging against all of the people God sends to us, urging them in clever and/or harsh ways, that they must find God and refrain from their evil doing. When we do this, we subject ourselves to like treatment and there will be people who will come into our lives, judging us and urging us to change our ways for the better. This launches a cyclic assault of contempt, resentment, judgment, anger, hurt and unforgiveness. We, like everyone else here on this planet, desire unconditional love, not criticism and conditional love. So we will reject their counsel, or deepen those dark spots in our hearts as we pretend to appreciate their good intentions at correcting us. Yet deep down we will resent it. Then, once again, God will send people who will ferret out our suppressed feelings and faulty logic that has settled deep into our soul.

Is there no end to this? Indeed there is! Jesus Christ is the only way out of this hopeless mess that keeps getting worse and worse. He died on the cross for our souls. He did not leave us helpless and comfortless. He sent the Holy Spirit in His stead and God's Spirit remains to speak with our hearts, if we'll only listen. God sends antidotes, for our deep infestations to us every day, in the form of people who irritate us. They can either be accepted as, 1.) God's prophets, messengers, or angels perhaps, or 2.) as God's method of getting even with us because we are so bad and unworthy of His love. We will never become healed if we have the later attitude, believing a lie that accuses God of being mean or unfair. We are avoiding the fact that Jesus died to save us from our sins and if we do not allow Him to remove them by our focus on Him, the sins will, like weeds in our soul, blossom and seed and grow until we are, once again, mired in carnality and unable to be used by the Lord to draw more people into the kingdom of God through His Son, Jesus Christ. Let's avoid this and take on the first attitude mentioned above. Let's love and appreciate the people who drive us batty, perhaps, viewing them as heaven-sent. If they drive us to our knees, can they be from the devil?

The devil wants to keep us from our knees, not drive us to them. The devil would promote the second attitude in the above paragraph. He would tell us to lash out at the people God sends into our lives. The devil knows that vengeance and distrust and anger and all the carnality of his kingdom, will keep us standing proud and fighting for our rights by defeating those who make us uncomfortable, driving them away, never to be seen again. Have you noticed that they always return, though, just in different forms? Have you noticed in our own history, we defeat one form of oppressive government and we chalk it down on our tally sheet that we won, but only a few months or a few years later, up crops a brand new historically significant enemy that we must defeat? Can we learn at last that there is only one way to win in this world? That is through Jesus Christ, as we pray, humbling ourselves before God, forgiving and receiving forgiveness from Him. All of the times we “win” any other way, we have actually defeated ourselves. We are clever and powerful, successfully managing to live in our well defended forts. Thus we keep the enemy out, not recognizing he was an invaluable aid, sent directly from God to help us grow and be more like His Son.

There is a reason we are to go to the Lord and to our prayer closets ANYTIME we are bewitched, bothered or bewildered. It is so we might be healed. God does not want us to continue being in charge of our lives, desperately trying to stay above water as we try to do things our way, fighting against evil and injustice, fighting against this and against that. For God's sake, we must “resist not evil” and go to our Father in prayer for help in forgiving so that we might be forgiven, and love so that we might be loved.

Yes, you say, but won't “the enemy” just wipe us out with his oppressive tactics? Won't we become helpless victims and live our lives in prison or be put to death because of our beliefs? Indeed, yes! But in the process, we must never forget our main goal is not to return oppression for oppression, hate for hate, eye or eye or tooth for tooth. Our main goal here is to follow Jesus to the cross, resist not evil so that we can do as He did, and forgive deeply as God forgives us completely. If our goal is to defend ourselves, we build tiny forts in our hearts that we must defend constantly, never obtaining the peace God has for us—which waits, by the way, just on the other side of our defenses, as we humble ourselves before God, through Jesus Christ.

God Himself said there is nothing greater than our being willing to lay down our lives for others. We know the martyrs have been blessed and will rule and reign with the Lord. They chose to put God first and allowed nothing to dissuade them from that goal. We, too, must be willing to die to self as God sends people who reflect our deepest, buried carnal beliefs. We are in a sense martyred and we must pray our deepest prayers of forgiveness, giving our lives totally up to the Lord, never once choosing to attack back or resist the people God sends into our lives.

Christ will rule because it is He who is the victor, not Satan. So if we give our lives completely to the Lord, it does not mean defeat, it means victory, not just in eternity, but here and now as well. If we keep small portions of the worldly way of thinking and defend ourselves against the tyrants, both in our individual lives and in our nations as a whole, we risk defeat at the enemy's hands. And who is our real enemy here? Satan, of course. He is the one who urges us to get up from our kneeling position and shun forgiveness and prepare to battle our way to a temporary victory, which is really a defeat, if we strive in our flesh.

God said He will do to us what we do to others. We might as well take this as a real truth, grounded in Christ, and heralded by God throughout the world in everything He does for us and in all the people He sends to us. As Paul said, “All things work together for good to those who love Christ Jesus.” This can only be true as we put into practice what God said in both the Golden Rule and Matthew 7:2.

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