​Why Hurting People Hurt People

Why Hurting People Hurt People

Not all hurt people hurt people. The most loving people who you will ever meet in your life are the people who have been hurt many, many times, but they have found the courage to love through the hurt. So, love has grown stronger in their lives.

A loving person chooses to be the seven things love is: patient, kind, trusting, persevering, hopeful, truthful, and protective of others. This is the fruitfulness of their life.

It is inevitable, as you know, that someone will come along and hurt them. If they keep loving through the hurt, then what is taken from them continues to be restored—no matter how many times they are hurt.

But, when they keep getting hurt, the pattern sets up and over time, they can make this fatal mistake and this is why they keep hurting people. They decide: loving just gets me hurt. They decide: from now on, it’s me first and I am just going to love myself.

When they do, they become the eight things fear is and love is not: selfish, rude, boastful, angry, unforgiving, envious, prideful, delighting in evil.

Now this fruitlessness is no longer the result of people hurting them, it is the result of their own decisions. But they don’t believe that. They believe the lie that it’s because people keep hurting them.

When fear fully develops in their lives, this suffering sets in, and in their minds it’s everyone else’s fault. When fear is fully developed, it delights in evil. So, they hurt people because they believe people hurting them is the reason they are living in this state. When the truth is it is not people hurting them, it is their failure to love.

But you don’t need to go back through your old hurts and open up all the old wounds. The way you get well is to love through the hurt.

The only good reason to go back to your hurt is to identify if you many any critical decisions--because of what you were going through-- that were based on a lie, and that were selfish. Then you should try to understand why you made those decisions, repent and try to make better decisions in the future.

Going back to your wounds and reopening them doesn’t heal the hurt. The only thing that heals us is loving through the hurt. And the good news is that, if we do that, at any moment, we can begin the healing process.

Ephesians 4:31-32 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Think about it.

Trust God’s Word no matter what.

Keep your eyes on the horizon.

If this doesn’t make sense, read my book, “The Right Fight: How To Live a Loving Life.” It’s all in there. I spent seven years writing it. It will help you set your life on a path of fruitfulness and show you how to live a loving and courageous life instead of a life driven by fear. Order the book on Amazon and at shieldsofstrength.com.