What Do You Do When The Person Who Hurt You Walks Through Your Door

How many people are on your black list?

You know what I’m talking about. The people you don’t call back. The ones you’ve quietly written off. The ones who said something, or did something, or didn’t do something, and now the door between you and them is shut. Maybe locked. Maybe you threw away the key.

Some of you are thinking, I don’t have a black list. And maybe you’re right. But I’d ask you to sit with that for a moment, because most of us have at least a short list.

People we don’t forgive easily. People we don’t give a second chance to. People we love from a very safe and deliberate distance — and not the good kind of distance.

I’ll be honest with you. I have people who don’t call me back. People who hold grudges against me. And when I really look at it clearly, a lot of that comes from my own smart-alec attitude, my own selfishness, my own sinfulness in years past.

I earned some of that silence.

But here’s what I’ve noticed, and this is the thing that causes me to pause and really evaluate myself. We go so much easier on our own faults than we do on other people’s. We forgive ourselves quickly. We give ourselves a second chance, a third chance, a twentieth chance without even flinching.

But let somebody else cross you, let somebody get a little snarky — Katie bar the door. The grace we swim in every single day somehow evaporates the moment someone else needs some of it from us. It’s just true.

Because what does God see when He looks at the people on your list?

He sees pain. He sees sinfulness, yes, but He sees where it came from. He sees the dysfunction, the insecurity, the heart wounds. He sees people protecting themselves in the wrong way, but He sees them trying to protect.

And here’s the part that really gets me, God understands that. Not excuses it. Not celebrates it. But He understands it. Now granted, some people are just mean. Some people have hardened themselves into a pattern of selfishness that runs deep.

But even those people, imagine them with a changed heart. A heart that honors God, loves others, forgives freely, serves genuinely. Can you give that person to God?

Can you trust Him with them instead of appointing yourself the Holy Spirit Police?

Because the moment you do, your perspective shifts. Your love for them changes. You can still hold a wise boundary, especially if they’re showing no kindness or regret. But you can love them from a distance.

You can hold them with an open hand before God and say, Lord, they’re yours. I trust you with them. That is not weakness. That is one of the most spiritually mature things a human being can do.

Now let me take you to the passage that started all of this for me. King David. En Gedi. A cave. Saul had been hunting David across the wilderness for months, not because David had done anything wrong, but because Saul was eaten alive by jealousy and paranoia.

David and his men were hiding in a cave, and then Saul walked into that very cave, alone, completely unaware that the man he was trying to kill was sitting in the shadows watching. David’s men leaned over and whispered, this is your moment.

David crept close enough to cut off a piece of Saul’s robe. He could have ended it right there. He had every human reason to. And he stopped. His conscience wouldn’t let him.

When Saul left, David called out and said: “May the Lord judge between us, and may he punish you for the wrong you have done to me! But I am not against you.” (1 Samuel 24:12 NCV).

The man who was hunting him to death. The man who had stolen his peace and made his life a wilderness. And David looked at him and said, I am not against you. He saw Saul as God’s responsibility, not his. He didn’t need to settle the score. He trusted God to be God.

Let me get personal for a minute. I have a neighbor who is really struggling. Lost their dad not long ago. Mom is now going into a nursing home. You can see the grief on this person, it is real and it is visible. My heart genuinely goes out to them.

And yet, I am apparently the dog. This person is fighting me over a property boundary, wanting to put a fence back in a way that infringes on our land, something that’s both legally wrong and honestly just plain ugly.

I’ve had to hire a surveyor just to establish what’s true. I’m not going to be pushed around on something that’s legitimately mine. But I’ve been kind. Deliberately, intentionally kind. I’ve even run my language through an AI program just to find a gentler way to say what I needed to say, not because that’s my nature, because honestly my needle leans hard toward anger and an I’ll show you attitude.

But I love my Lord more than I love being right. And this person, grieving, struggling, fighting a fence battle that is really about something much deeper, may be looking at me right now as the only thing in their life that even remotely resembles Christ. That changes everything.

It’s easy to be nice to nice people. It takes no patience when things go smoothly. To love the lovely is a piece of cake. But Jesus didn’t say love the people who love you back. He said, “But I say to you, love your enemies. Pray for those who hurt you.” (Matthew 5:44 NCV).

And then He said it even more plainly: “If you love only the people who love you, what praise should you get? Even sinners love the people who love them.” (Luke 6:32 NCV).

The real test, the one that reveals who you actually are , is when Saul walks into your cave.

What do you do? Who do you be? And Scripture doesn’t leave us guessing about the answer. “Be kind and loving to each other, and forgive each other just as God forgave you in Christ.” (Ephesians 4:32 NCV).

And when you’re tempted to take matters into your own hands: “My friends, do not try to punish others when they wrong you, but wait for God to punish them with his anger. It is written: ‘I will punish those who do wrong; I will repay them,’ says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19 NCV).

God is far better at justice than you and I will ever be.

And then there is this, the second greatest command Jesus ever gave: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” (Matthew 22:39 NCV).

Think about how generous you are with yourself. How readily you explain your own failures. How quickly you give yourself another shot. Now apply that, that same generous, patient, second-chance-giving love, to the person on your list.

That is the command. Not a suggestion. Not an ideal for the especially holy. A command.

So here is what you do. You keep calling the one who doesn’t call back. You keep showing love to the one who is angry. You keep reaching out to the one who never reaches out to you. Not because it feels good. Not because you’re getting anything in return. But because that is what real love looks like, love that expects nothing back, love that doesn’t keep score, love that looks at Saul standing in the cave entrance and still says, I am not against you.

So, who’s on your black list today? Who made you judge? Why would you withhold grace when so much grace has been poured out on you?

You already know what to do. The only question is, will you do it?

GOD, You already know the names I carry. The ones I’ve let drift to the edge of my heart, the ones I’ve quietly moved to a list I’d never show anybody. And right now I’m going to be honest with You, some of those feelings make sense to me. Some of those wounds are real. But I know You see those people the way You see me. Not through the worst thing they did, but through the love that led your Son to the cross. You see their pain. You see what made them that way. And You haven’t given up on them any more than You’ve given up on me.

So I’m asking You to help me release what I’ve been holding onto like it’s mine to carry. Help me trust You with the people who’ve hurt me, disappointed me, written me off. You are a far better judge than I will ever be. Give us discernment, Lord, real discernment, because we are quick to claim boundaries when the real boundary we don’t want to cross is the one that presses us to look more like You. Make us more like You. In the cave. On the property line. Wherever Saul shows up. Help us to be the one thing in somebody’s life today that actually looks like Christ. IJNIP amen ♥️