One at a Time

One of the toughest lessons of the Bible for me, is Jesus' commandment to; "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." (Matt. 5:44).  I don't know if my problem is that I just have too many enemies, or that I am just too much of a stalwart to change my frame of mind about something (I'm Scottish, I never like to change course once I start: and I have Scottish Parkinsons - I forget everything but my grudges).

One of the things that has helped me to "pray for those who persecute me" is to not try to pray for all of my persecutors at once.  I simply pick out one at a time.  And, in a sense, by picking out one of my so called enemies, I am really dealing with all of them.  I have figured out that all of the people I struggle with have a common denominator, and so by praying for one of them, I pray for all of them.

Every night I take my dog for a walk, and I pass by the house of one of my former persecutors.  I actually like the person, but there has been a history of brokenness and division between us, so there is a grand canyon's chasm of disconnect.  I have begun to simply, in a routine fashion, pray for this person each time I pass his door.  My prayer is not particularly eloquent or poetic, but simply, "please be with !?!?!?".  I also try to prevent my dog from peeing on this person's shrub...

I have only just started this process of prayer, so I am not sure where it will go exactly, or what I will learn or how I will grow from it, but I will let you know, pray for me:-)

All for Now,

GB