Blind love as opposed to blind hate?
“But I say to you,
love your enemies,
bless those who curse you,
do good to those who hate you,
and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,
that you may be sons of your Father in heaven,
for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends the rain on the just and on the unjust.”
How simple. Yet how hard.
It’s easier, I think, when “those who curse you” are nameless and faceless and have never hurt me personally. I can pray for Osama bin Laden. I can understand why a person who lost a loved one on 9/11 would have a hard time with that.
My hard time really doesn’t come with the “big” things. For some reason, “big” things come easier to me than the “little things”, the things that are split-second decisions. Will I choose to bless the cashier who’s nasty to me? I’m challenged to be nice to the guy who just cut me off in traffic and then gave me the finger because I was in his way. I’ve got issues with praying for people who intentionally hurt my kids.
A lot of it, for me, comes down to my (faulty) perception of my rights - I have the right to fast, competent service at the grocery store. I have the right to see a doctor immediately when I get to the emergency room. I have the right to safety in traffic. Oh really? On what grounds? Being in the United States? Someone in Valle de Riscoe, Panama would be glad to get to a doctor at all, no matter the wait. In Moscow you take your life in your hands when you drive in traffic (you do in New York City too). In some countries there are no long lines at grocery stores because there ARE no grocery stores! Those are just a few examples of what Americans see as “rights”. Really what we have is a pampered life here, and when our expectation of that pampering is somehow disrupted, we pitch a fit.
Jesus calls us to step out of the spa (well, really, the playpen) and into the Kingdom.
Radical trust in Him and love for Him means that we must love people as He loves people. He loved us when we were at our most unloveable - and when we most certainly didn’t love Him back. He loved us when we made ourselves His enemies. He blessed us when we cursed Him. He did good to us when we hated Him. He prayed for us when we spitefully used Him and persecuted Him.
Sobering thought for so early in the morning.
December 1st, 2007 at 9:02 am
Please sir, may I have some more gruel?
December 2nd, 2007 at 8:50 pm
So - blindly hating is better than intentionally loving?
BTW, according to Wikipedia, gruel is cereal boiled in water or milk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruel
Ergo, thinly made grits are gruel. If that’s the case, I’ll take some gruel any day. Abso-lutely!
Come to think of it, I really am sure that there will be grits in heaven. And collard greens. And fried chicken. And okra. And country fried steak. And gravy.
Mmmmmmm. I’m hungry, now….
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:07 am
“Blind love as opposed to blind hate”
In my way of thinking ma’am, either one is not good. I’m just a frail human being; I can’t love (or hate) someone/something I don’t know personally.
And the gruel bit is from Oliver Twist.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:08 am
And where I am right now it’s twenty degrees and windy!
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:14 am
Sure you can love someone you don’t know. People do it all the time.
On the cold issue…
You know - if the Bible didn’t specifically describe hell as hot, I’d ascribe to the personal belief that it was cold and snowy.
My friend, you are welcome to come and visit the much-warmer South… (tho really not MUCH warmer today - just in the 50’s - but definitely preferable to TWENTY)