Don’t Take It Personally

Don’t Take It Personally

If you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit? Even sinners do that much!      Luke 6:33

Here’s a news flash: You are a sinful person surrounded by other sinful people.

“That’s hardly breaking news,” you might say. But if that is so, why do you and I tend to be surprised when someone mistreats us, lashes out at us, and hurts our feelings? Your husband comes home from a bad day at work and takes his anger out on you. Your child is drowning in homework and slams the door in your face when you ask how his day went. Your boss gets on your case for something that wasn’t your fault. Husbands, wives, bosses, sons, daughters, colleagues, friends, neighbours, pastors, parishioners—we are part of a great chain of sinful people whose actions can create reactions in the space of a split second.

I remember how hurt I felt the first time one of my children said she hated me. I made the mistake of bursting into tears, thereby empowering my four-year-old. Here was this child I’d poured so much into, telling me what a wretched mother I was because I wouldn’t let her do something she shouldn’t.

Paul Tripp, speaking of married couples, puts his finger on a problem that can mar any relationship. He says that most of us “tend to personalize what is not personal.” He goes on to say that “at the end of his bad day at work, your husband doesn’t say to himself, ‘I know what I’ll do. I’ll take my bad day out on my wife so that her day gets as wrecked as mine.’ . . . You are living with a sinner so you will experience his sin.

“Now when you personalize what is not personal,” Tripp says, “you tend to be adversarial in your response. When that happens, what motivates you is not the spiritual need in your spouse that God has revealed but your spouse’s offence against you, your schedule, your peace, etc. So, your response is not a ‘for him’ response but an ‘against him’ response.”



Perhaps the first step toward experiencing peace in any relationship is the ability to stop taking another’s sin personally so we can see opportunities for ministering to that person instead.

Father, help me to find a better way to fight against sin in the lives of those closest to me. Enable me to take a step back so I can act for others rather than against them.