» On Loving Our Enemies

On Loving Our Enemies

Our group has been wrestling through what it means to actually live out the teachings of Jesus in real life. Last week we talked about the difficulty of actually loving our enemies, as Jesus so plainly taught and lived. In speaking of a difficult situation in which a coworker belittled her in public, a friend managed to keep her cool and handle it through HR, but then vented to her understanding husband.

She wrote, “The red headed “Sargent [bleep]” in me would like to peel his skin off with a dull spoon and feed it to him….after he is buried in sand, to grind into his wounds, with flesh eating bugs. As he is eating he can taste the bile flavored rot his useless body is and know it will not nourish the bugs, but make them die a slow agonized death as well as he.

But, the “[named] good girl” says I should pray for those who persecute me.”

I just love the candor. It’s so hard in the heat of the moment to actually live what Jesus taught. Her experience is such a great example of the honest battle within each of us to lash out in the heat of those unguarded moments, which seem to unravel us and give others a chance, for ever so brief a moment, to peer into the window of our true selves. But as we practice the discipline of loving others, our mind also shifts to the reality that we are, after all, called to love our enemies- even when we may not want to. In some ways it does become easier with practice, but as we can all agree, it is always a struggle.

May we continue in our struggle to love as Jesus loved.

Your thoughts.

Society and Culture | Mike | June 24, 2009 11:35 pm

14 Comments

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