"I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." (Matthew 5:44, NIV)
I was doing some thinking about the second half of this verse, and came to the conclusion that it is even harder than the first half (although they are, of course, two sides of the same coin). Why?
Sometimes I think I take the first half as a sort of day job. Love my enemies. Okay. I'll love my enemies while I'm going out into the world. I'll love them, be sweet to them, bite my tongue when I want to tell them things I've really thought of them in the past. But my time alone with God...that's mine.
I have an easy enough time with prayer requests for people I don't know. Even easier when I do know them, and love them and care for them. If a friend is hurting emotionally, physically, whatever, you can bet I'll be on my knees as soon as I'm alone or possibly sooner. Yet, if the same thing happened to someone I didn't happen to get along with...I might roll my eyes, mumble a prayer if I needed more "nice points". Might even laugh.
That's disgusting and horrible of me. I hope for my sake that those reading this can identify. Just that person that rubs you the wrong way. Maybe there's a history, maybe not. You don't even have to know the person. Maybe a celebrity or politician.
We say that celebrities these days have lost their dignity, call them "trashy". I don't doubt that's true, but we're the ones stripping them of their dignity when we refuse to see them as people. I admit, while I always avoid the word "hate" when it's a person I know, it'll slip out easily when talking about celebrities, because they're not "real people". How many times a day do I raise a judgmental eyebrow at acts that would be only sad if performed by a friend?
In the same vein, we don't have to love the actions to love the person. We may absolutely loathe everything a politician stands for, may swear up and down we'll leave the country if he or she is voted in. Might even have a good basis for this. Does that mean that we should hate them? Of course not. Even if they persecuted us openly, we are still to love them, still to pray for them, following His words and example.
When I do pray for those who hate me or persecute me or don't even know me but happen to bother me by their existence...I tend to go about it all wrong. "Dear God, please guide this person...You know they need it, the filthy heathens." I might not actually say that (who would?) but that is all too often the feeling behind my words.
So I started something new to me. I prayed for someone I didn't like as if they were the only person I knew, only person I loved. As if they were my best friend, all faults immediately forgiven simply by virtue of my love.
And it was incredibly freeing. Maybe it sounds a little ridiculous, but I plan to do that every time I'm tempted to open my mouth about somebody. I want to replace gossip and hateful thoughts with love all around, 24 hours a day.
I was doing some thinking about the second half of this verse, and came to the conclusion that it is even harder than the first half (although they are, of course, two sides of the same coin). Why?
Sometimes I think I take the first half as a sort of day job. Love my enemies. Okay. I'll love my enemies while I'm going out into the world. I'll love them, be sweet to them, bite my tongue when I want to tell them things I've really thought of them in the past. But my time alone with God...that's mine.
I have an easy enough time with prayer requests for people I don't know. Even easier when I do know them, and love them and care for them. If a friend is hurting emotionally, physically, whatever, you can bet I'll be on my knees as soon as I'm alone or possibly sooner. Yet, if the same thing happened to someone I didn't happen to get along with...I might roll my eyes, mumble a prayer if I needed more "nice points". Might even laugh.
That's disgusting and horrible of me. I hope for my sake that those reading this can identify. Just that person that rubs you the wrong way. Maybe there's a history, maybe not. You don't even have to know the person. Maybe a celebrity or politician.
We say that celebrities these days have lost their dignity, call them "trashy". I don't doubt that's true, but we're the ones stripping them of their dignity when we refuse to see them as people. I admit, while I always avoid the word "hate" when it's a person I know, it'll slip out easily when talking about celebrities, because they're not "real people". How many times a day do I raise a judgmental eyebrow at acts that would be only sad if performed by a friend?
In the same vein, we don't have to love the actions to love the person. We may absolutely loathe everything a politician stands for, may swear up and down we'll leave the country if he or she is voted in. Might even have a good basis for this. Does that mean that we should hate them? Of course not. Even if they persecuted us openly, we are still to love them, still to pray for them, following His words and example.
When I do pray for those who hate me or persecute me or don't even know me but happen to bother me by their existence...I tend to go about it all wrong. "Dear God, please guide this person...You know they need it, the filthy heathens." I might not actually say that (who would?) but that is all too often the feeling behind my words.
So I started something new to me. I prayed for someone I didn't like as if they were the only person I knew, only person I loved. As if they were my best friend, all faults immediately forgiven simply by virtue of my love.
And it was incredibly freeing. Maybe it sounds a little ridiculous, but I plan to do that every time I'm tempted to open my mouth about somebody. I want to replace gossip and hateful thoughts with love all around, 24 hours a day.
