Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” [Matthew 6:44]
A TOUGH COMMAND
This week’s blog entry has been hard. Last Saturday I thought it was finished, but in the aftermath of the Orlando massacre, I found I couldn’t post a reflection about a happy surprise. We had been surprised all right, shocked by an event it was hard to imagine God allowing. I simply couldn’t go on as if nothing had happened. But what to write about? My mind was blank.
I did the only thing I could think of: I prayed. A couple of hours later “Love your enemies” came into my mind. I now had a new focus, but it was a tough command to understand when faced with what Omar Mateen had done.
LOVE YOUR ENEMIES–AN EXAMPLE
As I struggled to understand what Jesus meant, I remembered witnessing a group of Christians in Charleston, SC love their enemy. As they faced the shooter who had sat in a Bible study and then pulled out a gun to kill people who had welcomed him, one after another offered words of forgiveness. Wanda Simmons, granddaughter of one of the victims, told Dylann Roof, “Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate… everyone’s plea for your soul is proof that they lived in love and their legacies will live in love. So hate won’t win.”
PRAY FOR THOSE WHO PERSECUTE YOU
Now I had an idea about “Love your enemies,” but when I looked up Matthew 5:44, I was taken aback. I’d forgotten the second part of that commandment: “Pray for those who persecute you.” As I considered the terrorism that’s sweeping across the world, I couldn’t imagine praying for members of ISIL. What good would it do to pray for men armed with machine guns? I couldn’t believe anyone dedicated to killing innocent people would be open to the whispers of the Holy Spirit. Lightning bolts from heaven, maybe–but we all know God doesn’t work that way.
SO HATE WON’T WIN
When I finally quit arguing and tried to pray for terrorists–a young man killing children in a school or a band holed up in a cave–I couldn’t do it. I hated the terrorists. I didn’t want to pray for them. Only after I opened my fists and put my hands in Jesus’ hands could I pray. As I let Jesus take my hatred and my fear, I prayed for God to change the heart of a faceless, nameless terrorist waiting somewhere for a chance to kill. That was when I truly understood what Wanda Simmons meant–we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us so hate won’t win in the battleground of our own hearts.
A passionate reader, I began writing as a young girl. After graduating from college, I became a teacher. Over the course of my career, I taught high schoolers, college undergraduates, and public school teachers how to write personal narratives, expository and persuasive essays, as well as poetry and short fiction. I continued to write: publishing professional articles, two textbooks, short stories, and poetry. In 2013, I won first place in Romantic Suspense in the ACFW Genesis Contest.
Suzanne, what a tough blog to write and to read. Pray for terrorists. Wow. And yet it is the right thing to do. If we don’t pray for those who hurt us, we have failed to follow God’s lead. We have allowed parts of our hearts to harden and become lead-like. I have to take baby steps in my prayers for individuals like the rapist who held several women in a house in Cleveland for years, for the man who kidnapped a young girl out west and several years later, when she was found, she was the mother of children at his hand. It is hard to say God, the victory is yours when satan is blasting away at our values everyday.
But you are right. We MUST pray for them. Nothing will change if we don’t.