Step #12-Love your Enemy

“Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” Matthew 5:44

Saturday of the First Week of Lent (March 7, 2009)

Yesterday, Jesus asked us to reconcile with someone who we do not like very much. Someone who hurt us very deeply. Today, He is taking us one step further. He wants us to love this person.

How can we possibly love this person? It’s hard enough to forgive, now He wants us to love too? He is asking us to “love our enemies.” Wow, that’s a tough one. Loving those that love us is easy, but loving those that are mean to us, those that are not very nice, those that hate us... That is not easy at all.

We may be seriously reconsidering this journey at this point. It all seemed so simple at the beginning. He asked us to do a little sacrifice, to pray a little harder, to give to the needy… He asked us to take up our crosses and bring them with us. He asked us to spread a little love to the people around us (of course, we did not think this also included our enemies). He asked us to spend more time with Him. He asked us to trust Him. All those things do not seem so difficult in comparison to what He is asking of us now. He wants us to forgive, love and pray for our enemies.

Praying for our enemies is easy enough. Father please allow_______to stop being such a bad person. Father please allow_______to convert from his or her evil ways. Father please allow_______to see things our way. We have to be careful how we pray. We cannot pray for the other person to change, we need to pray that we change the way we feel about that person. We have to be careful of becoming so self-centered that we think we are so good and holy, that everybody else needs changing except us.

Once we start to pray for our hearts to change, little by little we will be able to release the hatred, the resentment and all the anger we have been carrying in our hearts for so long. Once we begin to release all these feelings, we will be able to love. It may seem impossible, but the opposite of hatred  is love. Once we stop hating, we’ll start loving. Only then, will we be able to make room in our hearts for Jesus.