How to Kill a Leech

A leech. A mooch. A freeloader. We all know at least one. Mine happens to live with me. They do as little work as possible, but they demand more than anyone else. No matter how much attention is lavished on them, they still claim to feel neglected. No matter how many privileges are granted them, they complain about the few that are denied. No matter how you bend over backwards to please them, they are never satisfied. They take and take and take, and never give anything back. Like a leech, they suck the life out of you... until it feels like you have nothing left.

So... what do we do with these people who drive us up the wall? These people who, when we see them coming, make us want to run in the opposite direction? These people we'd sometimes like to strangle? (In my case, anyway...) Well (insert sigh here), this is what the Bible says:

"Here's another old saying that deserves a second look: 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.' Is that going to get us anywhere? Here's what I propose: 'Don't hit back at all.' If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, gift-wrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously. You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that. In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."

Matthew 5:38-48 (The Message)

Oh boy. Talk about hard hitting. But Jesus was always direct and to-the-point that way. My favorite part is: "If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus?" Nobody should get Brownie points for fulfilling the minimum requirements; that's my opinion. Doing only what you ought to be doing anyway isn't anything special, and it's certainly not praiseworthy. Going above and beyond the bare minimum... now, that's something.

It takes real guts to love someone who hates you. And I don't mean the mushy-gushy kind of love, or the philosophy that says Christians ought to be doormats. I mean powerful, courageous, coal-heaping love.*

My brother and I had a fight last week about our resident leech, my younger sister. Now I'll admit that I get on her case as much as anybody else in my family, but that night I'd had enough. They'd been fighting, and she went to bed upset. So I told my brother, at risk of my life, that he ought to go and apologize for his part in the screaming match.

He exploded, "She won't even care if I apologize! She'll still be mad, and she won't change even a little bit! Nothing I do is going to change her!"

So many thoughts ran through my head, little bits of wisdom that were all cliche, and therefore inappropriate. So instead I said this:

"You have to be a man of character whether it changes her or not."

After thinking it over a good long while, he went up and apologized, and as I expected, she threw it in his face, and he came tearing down the stairs in a rage.

"See, I told you!" He snapped.

And I just shook my head. That wasn't the point at all. Some people, my sister included, are hard to love. But that doesn't mean that we just ought to give up on them, or behave towards them as they behave towards us. I don't expect my relationships with difficult people to change in a day... but I do think that I can begin to model a more Christ-like kind of love towards them; the kind of love that says, "I love you as you are, but I don't intend to leave you that way."

Kill 'em with kindness. I don't care if that one is cliche, so there!

*Proverbs 25:21-22