Love Your Enemies, Part 2

And work for the peace and prosperity of Babylon. Pray to the LORD for that city where you are held captive, for if Babylon has peace, so will you. --Jeremiah 29:7

The Israelites had almost everything taken from them by the Babylonians. Their riches were stolen along with their freedom, their temple was burned to the ground, the lives of their friends and family were ended before their eyes. And in the midst of the grief and heartache over all that was lost when they were exiled from their homeland, God tells them to pray for Babylon. Their story certainly makes anything my enemies have done to me seem like acts of kindness, and it humbles me to think that I struggle to forgive my small enemies when God asked the Israelites to forgive the very people who ransacked the entire nation, who killed their children and did all they could to rob those who lived of any fragment of hope. But that is exactly who God is and what God expects from us.

When our enemies try to break us, God offers us wholeness and hope as a reward for our faithfulness to Him. He told the Israelites to get over themselves and pray for peace instead of vengeance for their enemies because peace for their enemies meant peace for them. How true this is in our own lives. When I was in a recovery group for my eating issues, I remember hearing the mantra "Hurt people hurt people" over and over again. Oftentimes those who we view as our enemies are hurting us because they themselves are hurt. Just like we love others out of the overflow of love in our hearts, we hurt others when our hearts are overflowing with pain. If we pray for healing for the pain and chaos in the lives of our enemies, then the peace they have will bring peace to us. God is so logical!

The problem for us is that it's easier for us to see the logic of praying for one's enemies when we aren't the ones suffering. When we're the ones in the midst of pain and chaos caused by our enemies, our hearts don't feel much like praying for the cause of our pain even if God says we should and even if we can understand the logic of why. But God rarely calls us to do what is easiest. It's when we do what He asks even when it's hard that we grow the most and that we see the desired results in our lives. He asks us to love our enemies because it is what is best for us and what brings Him the most glory, not because it's the most comfortable. And when we do what He askes, He is faithful to His promise to restore our lives to peace.

Posted by Kim at November 16, 2007 11:49 AM