Not everyone likes you. Some people hate you. By now you should already be aware of that.
May be some people do have reasons for hating you. But the truth is that not everyone who hates you has a reason for doing so.
The question is, why do some people hate you? Or better still, why do some people hate you without a reason?
If you ever find that some people hate you without a reason, know that you are not the first person to be so hated, neither will you be the last. I’m not justifying their hatred, but I’m giving you a friendly warning. So don’t take it personally.
Many people hated David without a cause
You know David as a man after God’s own heart. Unfortunately, not everyone felt that way about him.
David suffered hatred without a cause. He said so with his mouth.
In the Book of Psalms, we have a record of David feeling frustrated over the fact that many people hated him without reasons. Hear him:
Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head; many are my enemies without cause, those who seek to destroy me. I am forced to restore what I did not steal – Psalm 69:4.
Many have become my enemies without cause. Those who hate me without reason are numerous – Psalm 38:19.
Of course, the David we know had many enemies in his lifetime – those who have reasons to hate him and those who didn’t have reasons for hating him.
Someone like king Saul would feel he had a reason to hate David – David took his shine.
Before David emerged on the national scene, Saul was the people’s hero. He fought and won many battles for Israel – killing the enemies of his people in their hundreds.
But the story changed when David killed Goliath, Israel’s most powerful enemy. As the women began to sing the praises of David for killing “ten thousand” while King Saul killed only “one thousand”, Saul became jealous of David.
As if that wasn’t enough, Prophet Samuel had announced that God had rejected Saul as king and had chosen David to reign after him. So Saul became incensed against David and attempted to kill him on several occasions.
Despite the open attack him, David remained protected by God. Some how, his life was spared, but he wasn’t spared from the emotional pain that comes from experiencing hatred from people you know personally.
Haters – lessons from from David’s experience
On one hand, David knew some specific people who hated him. On the other, he knew also that those who hated him without a reason were too many to be mentioned one by one.
Concerning the latter group, David points out in clear words:
Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head; many are my enemies without cause, those who seek to destroy me. I am forced to restore what I did not steal – Psalm 69:4.
From David’s experience we can deduce the following vital lessons:
- Those who hate me – Please make no mistake about it, you have haters.
- Those who hate me without reason– There are people who hate you alright, but there are those who do so without explanation.
- Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head – Those who hate you without reason are quite many.
I will now examine the above three areas in details.
Like everyone else alive, you have haters too
Never doubt the fact that there are people who hate you. While there are open haters, you will have secret haters too.
As perfect and sinless as Jesus was, He had haters – people who strongly disliked Him, people who were negative and critical of Him. So never assume you don’t have haters.
You don’t have to call them haters before they show up. They are always available.
You remember the saying, “Whatever you do, haters will hate.”
Whether you are succeeding or failing in life, haters will not be in short supply. So you see, there will always be haters in the world. Just ensure you are not one of them.
Some people who hate you don’t have a reason to do so
As I said already, you have haters. While some of those haters feel they have ‘good’ reasons to hate you, there are some that don’t even have any good reason for hating you.
Remember David’s words, ” Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head.”
You can paraphrase that to mean that there are many people who hate you without any reason. In other words, people don’t need to have a reason to hate you.
On their own and in their own way, they will just hate you. It is not your fault, it is theirs.
Your haters are many
You do not only have haters, you have many of them. You may not know them but they know you.
David pointed out that people who hated him “outnumber the hairs of my head“. That’s a away of telling us that his haters were more than he could count.
I know you are not David, but some people still hate you. And even if you were David, you would still be hated.
Funnily enough, there is no guarantee that some people will stop hating you till you die. You just have to live with that. But that should not bother you. It is their fault for hating you without a reason, not yours.
The ministry of haters
You know you have haters. But why do you have haters?
You have haters because some people have chosen to be your haters – whether it is your fault or not.
Let me remind you of the three-fold ministry of satan: To kill, to steal and to destroy.
It was Jesus who taught us that,
“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
John 10:10 NKJV
Of course you know that the ‘thief’ in that passage is referring to satan himself. Part of what he does is to destroy people. And that too is what haters try to do.
The number one hater you have is satan. That same spirit of hatred may manifest in people who yield to him. And their purpose is to destroy you – emotionally, physically, spiritually and otherwise. Therefore, another word to describe a hater is a ‘destroyer’.
But fear not, you will rise above them.
I will show you how to handle haters. But before that, let me point out how to know your haters.
How to know if someone hates you
Dictionary.com defines a hater in two ways:
- a person who has an intense dislike for another person or thing (often used in combination)
- a person who thrives on showing hate toward, criticizing, or belittling other people or things, usually unfairly
From the two definition above, we can pin-point several ways to know if someone hates you:
- A hater will have intense dislike for you.
- A hater will dislike anything that has to do with you.
- A hater is happy that he/she hates you.
- A hater negatively criticises you and anything you say or do.
- A hater unfairly belittles you or things about you.
Dealing with those who hate you without a reason
Now that you have known that there are many people who hate you without a cause, how are going to deal with them?
First and foremost, don’t ignore them and pretend as if you don’t have haters. But at the same time, don’t have sleepless nights over them.
I will recommend you take Jesus advice for it as recorded in the book of Matthew chapter 5:
43 You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘Hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
In the light of the above, I will recommend the following with those who hate you without a cause.
Three ways of dealing with hatred without a cause:
- Never return hatred for hatred.
- Pray for yourself to be shielded from the negative effects of their hatred.
- Pray for the haters (known and unknown) to be converted.
Final Thoughts
Don’t be under the illusion that nobody hates you. In fact, there are many people who hate you – whether you know them or not. And sadly enough, many of such people hate you without a cause.
In his days, David was hated without a cause. So was Jesus and many other good people that lived afterwards.
A hater will dislike and criticise you. Just like the devil, a hater will aim to destroy you or tarnish your image. But don’t bother about them too much and at the same time don’t ignore them completely.
In dealing with haters, one thing you should never do is to return hatred for hatred. Instead, love and pray for them as our Lord Jesus commanded us to:
“…love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven...“
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