The other day I was considering a lady, whom I had,
not so far in the distant past, thought of her as an enemy
She was angry and offended and did not want to communicate with me
It seemed everything I said bothered her,
she was unable to understand my perspective on just about everything,
and I was very bothered by her attitude as well
An enemy doesn’t have to be someone you want dead
I just wanted her away from me
I can’t say my heart was perfect toward this lady
I prayed for her because I was commanded to do so
I forgave her because I was commanded to do so
Well, in God’s miraculous way, He did a work in our relationship
I can’t quite say we are friends, but almost
As I was considering this lady and the marvelous change that God had given us,
the healing of our relationship, and the communication that has helped us
to see the other’s perspective, I was thanking God
He, then, in the most gentle way,
showed me the compassion He had given me for her
It wasn’t until He had been able to do the work
that He was able to give me love for her in my heart
He was showing me how nice it would have been if I could have prayed for her, not considering myself, but her instead
When I prayed, it was something like:
God please work out this problem I have with this lady
because she is really hard to be around
It was quite a selfish way to pray
I did not pray for her soul
I did not pray for her hurts that may have caused her to be the difficult person she was
I did however, pray that I could handle things better, be a better person
Maybe God noticed that?
I did not have much compassion on her
The prayer was essentially that God would work things out
so she didn’t get on my nerves so much
and that we could more than tolerate each other
He did just that, but He did more, of course, because He is God
Sometimes I just expect just the minimum, but there’s always more
Reprimanded
He did answer my prayer
With gentleness, He showed me that He wants love, His love,
to permeate my intentions
Yes, I was doing the commands, praying for my enemies, but was I entirely?
Jesus said, Love your enemies
Loving her? That would have been a stretch
That wasn’t truly happening
I wasn’t caring about her, I just wanted peace
That’s not enough
If I am to serve the Lord and to love Him
with all of my heart and mind and soul and strength, that was not enough
If I am to love my neighbor as myself
The intentions in my prayer were not enough
But, God, it was hard enough to forgive her and then I had to pray for her?
That was a lot
I wasn’t really in trouble
I didn’t officially do something wrong
However, since He has the overwhelming love that He can share with me,
my intentions could have been better, more mature, less selfish
Maybe next time, God
We’re all works in progress
To attain the perfection that Jesus meant when He said,
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5:48
Maybe that comes from trying harder
Trying harder to do a better job carrying that cross, the heaviness,
the sometimes excruciating pain we humans experience
that can be given over to Him when we allow our flesh to die,
to be willing to lay down our lives more purely before Him
Maybe that’s what it means?