Move Toward The person You’d Rather Avoid

We all have people we’d rather avoid. Maybe it’s the coworker who drains us with negativity. The relative who only calls when they need something. The neighbor whose political signs make your stomach churn.
Our instinct is to step back, not lean in.

To avoid, not approach.

To preserve our peace rather than risk discomfort.

Yet the gospel dares to say: Move toward the person you’d rather avoid.

Parker Palmer once wrote, “The people who make us feel most awkward, most confined, most out of control, are the very ones who can teach us what we need to know.” In other words, the relationships we resist might be the very places God intends to grow us.

It’s not about becoming best friends with everyone. It’s about letting God use our discomfort to reveal what’s really in us. Do I move away because of their behavior? Or because of my bias, my impatience, my fear?

Thomas Merton put it bluntly: “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.”

The Good Samaritan is more than a story of roadside compassion. It’s a confrontation: Will you cross the road toward the person you’d rather avoid? Jesus puts the hero’s mantle not on the priest or Levite who avoided, but on the Samaritan who drew near to someone who would likely have despised him.

This doesn’t mean ignoring boundaries. It means rethinking the story we tell ourselves about the “other.” It means letting God stretch our hearts beyond preference and convenience. Henri Nouwen said, “Community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives. And when that person moves away, someone else arises to take his or her place.” It’s as if the Spirit never lets us off the hook — because transformation always comes through the people we resist.

So today, when you sense yourself shrinking back, pause. Remember: Christ moved toward us when we were at our worst. Christ crossed every barrier — sin, shame, even death itself — to draw near. Following Christ means we do the same.

Reflection Questions:

1. Who is the person in your life you’re most tempted to avoid right now?
2. What step — however small — would it look like to “cross the road” toward them in love?
3. How might moving toward the uncomfortable be God’s way of reshaping you?

Prayer:

Christ who crossed the distance,

help me move toward the one I’d rather avoid.

Strip away my excuses.

Stretch my heart.

And make my steps echo yours —

steps of love, steps of courage, steps of grace.

Amen.

Grace and Peace,

Andrea