I’ve read and heard advice about dealing with negative people. The usual advice is to avoid them. As Christians, this isn’t so easy, because they are in the Church with us, we marry them, we have them as parents. These are people and relationships that can’t be discarded or ignored. So what are we to do? I’ll suggest three things.

Negative people—they’re like the liquid from some vegetable that creeps across your plate and ruins the experience of a great hamburger because your bun is now a soggy mess. When the sun is shining in life, they’re always reminding you of the clouds. They live and think in the realm of fear and worry. They think in terms of what can go wrong, not what good might come. Martin Seligman, in his book, Learned Optimism, describes the pessimist as one who has “the knack for snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.”

Being negative, a pessimist, a cynic, is not God’s will for a Christian. Some of us are recovering pessimists; others of us need to be in negativity rehab. Of all the people on the face of God’s good earth, the Christian should be the most positive. How can a Christian be negative, when he knows he is created in the image of God and has been reborn as a child of God and adopted into God’s family? How can he be negative, when he wears the sign of God’s people in baptism and is privileged to come to the exclusive family fellowship meal with God in the Supper? How can a Christian be negative, when he knows that all his sins are forgiven, that the perfect obedience of Christ counts for him, that God’s Spirit indwells him, that God is working out everything for his welfare, even the bad stuff; that God will never leave him or forsake him, that He will supply all he needs in this life and the next, and that he doesn’t need to worry about dying? I could go on and on; but you tell me, who better has a reason to be positive and should not be wallowing in the negative?

So how does this happen? How is it that Christians can have so much going for them and have lives that are characterized as being negative? I believe there are two causes that develop this negative spirit in some Christians.

1) Their environment – Of course our sin comes from within; but there are various outside influences that will encourage and feed a negative spirit; one example would be the family. Many negative Christians have been raised in families where either one or both parents were of a negative mindset. They were governed by fear, worry, distrust, envy and other things that bred this mentality. Children were never encouraged to take risks; instead, they were always to play it safe; they were never encouraged to reach for the stars, because they would only get burned. They were never to try anything new, because they might fail; and failure was to be avoided at all costs. Change was always the enemy; doing anything different could not be tolerated. Some negative people got that way because they learned it at home (Parents, what is the environment of your home?).

2) Their loss of perspective – Christians with a good understanding of Christian truth can drift into a negative personality without too much difficulty. It happens without our realizing it. We live in a fallen world. Things aren’t pretty sometimes. We know God’s truth and see a world that ignores it, and we get discouraged. We try to bring positive change, and it doesn’t happen. We become pessimistic and cynical about things going on around us. We confess the truths that a Christian is supposed to believe, that are reasons for being positive, but we don’t apply them to the mess of life; so we end up being the soggy bun everyone has to live with.

I’ve read and heard advice about dealing with negative people. The usual advice is to avoid them. As Christians, this isn’t so easy, because they are in the Church with us, we marry them, we have them as parents. These are people and relationships that can’t be discarded or ignored. So what are we to do? I’ll suggest three things.

1) We must ignore their negativity and not let them tear us down. Don’t engage them in conversations that will trigger their cynicism. Don’t look to them for encouragement; look elsewhere. Fill your thinking with God’s truth. Remember, Christ was laughed at. He was not respected by his family and hometown. His disciples wrongly cautioned and corrected Him, and could only see the worst at times, in what He said and did.

2) We must pray for them. Job prayed for his negative friends (Job 42:8,10). This is God’s will. Instead of anger toward negative people around us, we can pray for God to forgive them and change them.

3) We must point them to God’s truth. This is where we must tell them to go. They need to go to God’s Word, because His truth is not governing their thinking, conversation, and conduct. Some will justify themselves as being discerning, prudent, cautious, etc.; but it is all a cover up for their sin. When they do this, leave them alone and move on. This is not being negative toward them on your part; this is being like Jesus; maybe they will get it later, but they aren’t now, and you’ve got more profitable things to do for Christ than to waste time on the self righteous.

Pete Hurst is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America and serves as Associate Pastor at Calvary Reformed Presbyterian Church (PCA), Hampton, VA. He blogs at God’s Fool, where this article first appeared; it is used with permission.