Luke 6:27-28 To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person. (The Message)
The Bible is filled with many reasons to pray and when I saw this today, I thought, 'ok, this is a reason why I need to pray, big time and all the time'.
It's telling me to love a person who can't stand me and who says hurtful things about me. Am I letting that person bring out the best in me? No. Should I be? Yes.
So how can that happen, how can I love someone like that? How can that type of treatment bring out the best in me and make me stronger and more forgiving? It's something I don't know, but God does.
I am going to have to make a deliberate choice to focus my thoughts on that Scripture as it's too easy to dismiss it and too easy to say, 'how can that happen' or 'no way can that happen' or even worse, 'no way, I'm going to let that happen'. Because of those phrases, I know this Scripture needs to play a much bigger role in my life.
I'm always asking God for help to see what I don't see. Today, it's clear that Luke 6:27-28 is what I'm not seeing either advertently or inadvertently. The first thing I need to do is ask God to help me with the right words. Words that aren't empty words just made up of letters, but words that come from my heart.
I'm not there now and I don't know if I ever will be there. I need to pray for strength and courage because I have none and loving this enemy will be a never ending uphill battle for me, but if I believe the Scripture (which I do), I have to keep trying.
Nancy
