I realize Thanksgiving was a few days ago, but I need to do this post this morning to keep my heart in a place of gratitude instead of a place of griping about how I had to wake up early and come back to work today after 4 days off. So here is what I'm most thankful for this year:
~My job. As much as I don't want to be here this morning, I'm so grateful to have a job that provides some financial stability and some personal fulfillment.
~My home and my material possessions. I know they are just things, but I am blessed that God has shared them with me, and I pray that I would neither take them for granted nor put too much value on them since my real treasure is in heaven.
~Church. I am grateful for the opporunity to connect and grow with other believers and to have people with similar hearts to walk the journey with.
~My education. I sometimes take for granted how valuable eduation and intellect are because I've never really known life without either. But when I encounter people who haven't had the same opportunities, I remember how lucky I am.
~My dog, for her carefree personality and unconditional love. She makes me smile when I need to the most.
~My family, both biological and in-law. I grew up with such close ties to my family, and I am thankful for knowing that kind of love. I am also blessed to really enjoy my in-laws.
~My friends. Even as our relationships have changed over the years with moves and marriages and new jobs and churches, I'm thankful for the bond that holds us together through the changes.
~My mother who has taught me so much about beauty, grace, and strength, and how these are all sharpened through pain. Some people are afraid to become their mothers, I think I would be lucky to do so.
~My incredible husband. I am truly blessed to have married my best friend, someone I can share everything with and who loves me as I am. We make each other better people.
~Most of all, Jesus. Because of His blood, I can come before God with a clean heart and I no longer have to be a prisoner to my own sinful ways. He changed my life by sacrificing His. I'm so grateful to serve a God who wants a relationship with me and pursues my heart with such fervor. He has overflowed my cup, and these ten things are only part of what He's blessed me with.
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.
But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. --Luke 6:27-28
As a Christian, one of the hardest principles for me to practice has been to pray for and love my enemies. The few people that I would actually see as "enemies" have hurt me so deeply that just letting go of the hurt takes lots of effort and lots of prayer. And then when I think I've done it, someone will mention that person to me and all the hurt they caused me will come back and I'll have to start from scratch. Forgiveness is a complicated matter.
So this morning I was talking to God yet again about a person I seem to have to forgive over and over again. I told Him how hard it is for me to pray for good things for this person after all that went down between us. While I was praying, God showed me something I should have probably realized awhile ago in relation to this particular person. I don't need to be praying for worldly blessings and a comfortable life for this person, I need to be praying for salvation and for that person's walk with God. That's the only blessing that really matters. It is not God's will for anyone to be lost.
Sin is the cause of most of the pain in the world. It's the cause of the pain that my enemies have put in my life and the cause of the pain that I have put in the lives of others. But that pain doesn't matter compared to the souls that are at stake. Grudges are the enemy's will, forgiveness and freedom are God's will. I need to put all pettiness aside and pray for the lost--including the lost that have wounded me--because even the deepest of my hurts is pettiness in the face of eternity.