Ron Aulbach

Ever feel like someone’s got your number? Knows how to get under your skin?  It’s often been said that life would be easy if you didn’t have to deal with people.  Relationships from the most basic of friendships to the most committed of marriages, inevitably will have seasons of tension and disagreement.  So, what do you do when people push your buttons?  Here are a few things to think about:

1. People who push buttons, have had their buttons pushed.  Newton’s third law of thermodynamics applies to more then just physics.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  When someone pushes your buttons, it’s a clear sign that they have been pushed.  Their past might be haunted by manipulative, controlling, abusive relationships that have pushed them hard.  You gotta know that, and see past the boney finger and scrunched nose staring at you.  Instead, see a person who has been pushed hard by someone else.
2. When you engage, you will only enrage.  It’s easy to identify those who push your buttons, but have you turned it around and thought about how you push them right back.  You might be more subtle or deceptive in how you push back, but you still do it.  And, so begins the viscous cycle of engaging and enraging one another.  So, don’t push back, instead…
3. Be love.  It’s true that hurt people, hurt people.  It may explain their behavior but it does not excuse it.  With your actions, you could change the tide and stop the cycle.  So, be love to the person who keeps pushing you.  It will fight against every nerve in your body, but instead of isolation, gossip, or slander, find a way to be loving.  Compliment your critics.  Give a gift card to the know it all antagonist.  Be love.  Don’t just think nice thoughts, actually show them love.
4. Character development alert!  The most difficult and pushiest of people will gut you.  But, that is a good thing because it exposes the areas of your character where you need to grow and develop.  So, allow yourself to be molded and developed by the people who are the hardest to deal with.  Where there is anger, there is an opportunity to bring peace.  Where you have been stabbed in the back, there is an opportunity to demonstrate forgiveness.
5. Resolution must happen.  Eternity is a long time to hold a grudge. So, keep short accounts and do whatever is within your power to resolve outstanding hurts and hang ups with others.

I have a long ways to go, and I’m incredibly grateful for the people who are far more patient with me then I am with them.  Imagine what just one day would look like if we actually lived the way God intended.

“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:2-3