How Do I Love My Enemies?ਨਮੂਨਾ

Understanding Enemies

In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey tells the story of witnessing a man riding the subway with his two kids. These kids were out of control. They yelled loudly, constantly switched seats, and bothered the other passengers. The man didn’t do anything about it. He just sat in his seat, looking out the window, oblivious to the mayhem that his kids were creating.

While Covey was bothered by the kids' actions, he was even more perturbed by the lack of action from the dad. Finally, he said, “Sir, can you do something about your kids?”

“The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, ‘Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.’”

It is very difficult to love someone when you don’t understand them. We can think that our enemies are simply one-dimensional. They are evil and that’s that. Many men never consider that they might have been terribly mistreated or even abused themselves. We take no time to wonder about their backstory or the possible reasons why they are treating us so poorly.

This is not to excuse bad behaviour, but it does provide the opportunity to pause and ponder their situations. This, in turn, may open the door for grace and mercy to flow from us to them.

People are in need, whether they know it or not. They may need to “borrow” grace from us for a time.

Just think about how you have acted poorly because of your own past hurts. You need people to be gracious to you. Why wouldn’t we think that others need us to be gracious to them?

May God help us all to be men who love our enemies even as Jesus loved His enemies, including us.

Prayer: Dear Lord, You know that when I am hurt, I am super quick to take offense and to judge. I have almost no patience and grace for the ones who hurt me. Help me to learn to show more grace. Help me to at least pause and consider that the other person may be responding to me out of their own hurt that had nothing to do with me. Help me to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Give me Your eyes to see people the way You see them. Amen.

Reflection: What makes it so hard to pause and think about why another person may be acting the way they are acting? How can you find out another person’s motivations?

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