The hardest thing in the world is to love all people. It's one of those life skills that's ingrained into you as a child, maybe not in that phrasing, but in learning how to share, not hitting people and to stand up for those getting bullied. As we age, we forget the simple concept of how to love people without applying boundaries such as, "I can't love them because of (insert some life choice or political party here.)" All through high school, my friend group was incredibly religiously diverse. Out of our group of five, no one had the same exact denomination, in fact not every one in our group was even Christian. It isn't impossible for people who are different, not just in religious matters, to tolerate each other. It's so easy to love people that see eye-to-eye with us. Those that you make time for in your busy schedule. Despite our tendency to form groups, sometimes you run into people that just glow. They radiate with this unfathomable joy. They have an aura that draws people to them like a moth to a flame. A crowd gathers to hang onto their every word as though they spoke in riddles and every detail is vital. And we all ask the same question, "what could possibly be what makes them different?" At what point did they learn how to show so much grace? If you are that person, you inspire me beyond all reasonable belief. Whatever you're doing, please continue. For the rest of us, we could never see ourselves as even being in the same league as that individual. We stand and admire their glow from afar, but acknowledge that we just aren't that way. Whatever it is, it just seems to come so naturally to them.

I'll let you in on a little secret, you can be that person. In fact, you might already be one of them. We look at ourselves and only see the flaws. We see only the things we do that hurt others. We see the sassy side comments and the cruel way we tend to judge people based on what little we know about them. What we fail to understand is that those we admire aren't flawless either. Very few people are born full of grace. Having that agape level of love for people is something that often has to be worked toward. Christ calls us throughout scripture to be kind to one another. If having kindness and being loving was something that came naturally to us, Christians overall wouldn't be challenged in John 13:35, " By this all people will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." If kindness wasn't hard, it wouldn't set us apart. No one is kind and gracious all the time and you're not expected to be the perfect example. What you can do is work tirelessly and selflessly to be that example. And in order to achieve that, you have to understand the very depth of the love that Christ has for you, which is the ultimate example of how we should live and grow with the people around us. How can we turn down requests for forgiveness in exchange for pride and power, when we fall short of Christ's expectations for us daily (Romans 3:23)? How can we count ourselves as entitled enough to turn down an opportunity to let the love of Christ shine through us when Romans 15:5 puts it at simply as possible. "May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another in accord with Jesus Christ." In order to truly love like we should, it literally takes an act of God.

Loving those around you may be one of the hardest challenges we face as a society, because we look around and see how cruel of a world we live in on a daily basis. But we can be the generation of change. We have the ability to encourage people around the world, but instead we choose to hide behind screens to get attention for ourselves. Imagine how wonderful of a world we could create by loving everyone like Jesus did. We over complicate the concept by putting our own boundaries and restrictions on how kind we can be to certain groups. Put away the pride and self-entitlement,because when that burden is no longer on your shoulders, you will be amazed at how much one person changing the negative stigma can accomplish.