Loving the Hard-to-Love at Christmas

December 8, 2025

Christmas cards show smiling families around perfect trees. Hallmark movies end with enemies becoming sweethearts under mistletoe. But real Christmas often looks different: the relative who criticizes everything, the friend who ghosted you, the coworker who sabotaged your project—now all crammed together at holiday gatherings. The very season that sings “peace on earth, good will toward men” can feel like a master class in loving people who are hard to love.

John 3:16 cuts through the tinsel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Not the cute, cuddly world. The dark, rebellious, God-ignoring world of verses 19-20, people who “loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” That’s us. That’s them. That’s the world God loved so much He moved into the neighborhood as a helpless baby.

God didn’t wait for us to get our act together. He sent His Son into our mess, knowing we would reject, mock, and murder Him. Romans 5:8 puts it bluntly: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were enemies. That is the Christmas miracle: Love arrived not because we were lovable, but because we were utterly unlovable.

I once watched this truth transform my daughter’s middle-school nightmare. A former best friend, let’s call her Courtney, turned vicious: jealousy fueled gossip, exclusion, even physical attacks. My wife and I coached our daughter with every biblical strategy: kindness, prayer, boundary-setting. Nothing worked. The attacks intensified.

Then one night I sensed God whisper something surprising to my soul, “I didn’t put Courtney in your daughter’s life to be fixed. I put Courtney there to teach her how to love someone who hates her.” When my daughter stopped trying to win Courtney back and simply began praying blessing over her, something shifted. They never became friends, but the torment stopped. More importantly, my daughter learned an important lesson about the hardest kind of love there is, loving difficult people without needing them to change, love you back, or even like you.

Jesus commands the impossible in Luke 6:27-28: “But to you who are listening I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” He knows we can’t do it in our own strength. That’s why the command comes with a promise in Matthew 5:44-45, “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

Think of the people on your Christmas list who feel more like sandpaper than sugarplums. The uncle with political rants. The sibling who always plays victim. The ex who ruined everything. Jesus invites us to see them the way He sees us: lost, broken, acting out of pain, yet infinitely valuable. Can we pray like Jesus prayed for you on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

We are all familiar with the lesson of whether the glass is half-empty or half-full. It all depends on the way we look at it. This applies here because, unless we work at it and pray about it, we will see people through the lens of our hurt. God sees them through the lens of the cross, the price He gladly paid because He loves them.

This Christmas, ask God for His eyes. When that difficult person walks in, silently pray, “Father, show me how You see them.” Then, love them with small, stubborn acts: an extra serving of pie, a genuine compliment, a refusal to gossip, a blessing spoken silently upon their lives. You don’t have to feel warm fuzzies. You just have to obey.

The world will notice. They always did when Jesus did it. Tax collectors and sinners flocked to Him, not because He compromised, but because He loved without condition. The manger led to the cross because love that changes the world is never cheap. It costs everything. But it is the only love worth giving, and the only love that lasts when the decorations come down.

Can you love the Courtney in your life the way God always loves you in yours? Who is the “Courtney” in your life right now? When you picture Jesus looking at that person, what expression do you see on His face? What is one specific act of enemy-love you can offer this Christmas season? How might your family gatherings change if everyone prayed daily for the most difficult relative? The light came into darkness not to condemn it, but to redeem it. Be that light that Jesus will be glorified. (To learn more about Al Earley or read previous articles, see www.lagrangepres.org. You can purchase my book, My Faith Journal, at Amazon.com, a compilation of 366 articles as a daily devotional. Check out my podcast on YouTube, called “My Faith Journey”).