Her Name Means Wild

How do you love your enemies? The people that wrong you and intentionally try to hurt you? The ones that hold a grudge against you for no reason? How do love them? How do you love the people that wish you harm?  How do you show kindness to people that twist and manipulate your words?

I would say it’s hard to love them. And why would anyone in their right mind keep them “close”?  It seems more logical to keep my enemies as far away from me as possible.  I don’t like conflict, so it only seems right that I avoid it.  But Jesus teaches us to do, what it seems, the impossible.  My enemies rob me of my peace, how am I going to accomplish this?  Instead, he tells me to love my enemies as myself.

What Jesus asks us to do is so radical, maybe even crazy.  Martin Luther King mirrors off Jesus’ teaching, “I have decided to stick with love.  Hate is too great a burden to bear”.  Indeed, to hate takes so much energy and to love is difficult.  But love drives us to pray for them and when we do that, we overcome evil with good. And we leave the world a far more better place than how we found it. How do I love my enemies, I should start by praying for them.

Lord, give me a heart to love all people, to pray for those that treat me badly and show grace to them.