How do you love your enemies? I don't know for sure but you might try seeing them as desperate human beings in search of the right way to live. I try to do this and it often helps keeps my own emotions of anger under control. I would like for this ability to love your enemies be something that is true and comes easily. It is not. Humans aren't built that way. Self-preservation is a strong force and is upfront whenever danger is sensed.
We are advised by God to do so, however, and that makes the problem one to ponder over. And pondering over problems, in the right frame of mind and with the right intentions most often bring solutions; it's one little insight and then another and another. . . I am not an expert, only a desperate human being in need of understanding all the hatred I see floating over the whole world at present.
How do we react to such craziness? Do we grab a broom, a stick, a club, or, God forbid, something more lethal, and join the mob? No, if we are peace loving and God loving and believing, we do not. What then? We think. Why am I reacting thusly? What in my present or my past give me the right to be so forthright? Have I need to seek revenge over some past slight by someone almost now forgotten and am using this to quiet my frustration?
Whatever, sit down and ask God for help. You don't need a certificate of approval from anyone to simply confess your ignorance of the whole matter. Just say, God I need help. What is going on and what role am I to play? Should I stay home and forget about it, or should I search my own soul and see exactly where I stand on this frightening matter. Who is right and who is wrong? Whatever you talk to Him about, be truthful. If the situation at hand have caused your own past unsolved conflicts to surface, take them out of their hiding place and look over them. Be Truthful.
Whatever you do don't add to the national or world conflicts by dumping into the heap your own inadequate self with all it's unsolved problems. First find out what is causing the uprisings, determine your own mindset concerning the issues involved, get help from above as to the real issues involved and then, only then, take a stand. And by taking a stand you don't have to publicize your concerns and take one side or the other. Not presently, but you have to decide within yourself how to approach the problem when others ask for your views. It is quite all right to remain neutral when you don't know what the h--- is going on.
Why to that last sentence? Just say you don't want to talk about what you know nothing about but you will look into the matter. You will be off the hook and will have time to get some real facts concerning the bad news spewing all over TV, smart phones and the news media. And it will allow you time to understand how you can love your enemies while not loving or even liking what they are engaged in.
Decide that no matter how heinous the crimes being committed you will love the person while not loving or agreeing to what they are doing. Instead of hating them, love them as possibilities for Christian enlightenment and on your side for a peaceful world. (View them as prisoners of their own wrongdoing and you as a visiting consultant as to the value of their possible self-improvement.) Take this as a clue as to the rightfulness of your action: In the Bible, somewhere in the New Testament, Jesus answers those who accused him, rightly, of eating and sharing time with sinners. He told them why bother wasting time (He used other words, ones I can't quote exactly) with those who didn't need to change their ways, who were already on the right path onward, but who needed to improve their sinful ways.
That tells us that he loved sinners and if he did it, we should do likewise. Did he not say, take up your cross and follow me? While it's true you cannot learn to love your enemies, whether they be public enemies or personal acquaintances that cross your path occasionally and get your usual good reasoning ability out of order, they are human beings and as such are good candidates for improvement. (And if they are not and are more in tune with the REAL ENEMY OF ALL HUMANITY you will know how to block them from your inner viewpoint.
Am I being a hypocrite for not coming right out and taking sides against all the enemies of good common sense that we see being played out each day? Yes, sort of. But at least in my favor I am being truthful. I am not trying to be a know-all, end-all-sin kind of person. That is impossible. All things are possible with God but that is not so with human beings. We are here to do his work and to do what we understand to be what he wants us to do. And at this point in time, that could very well be, LOVE YOUR ENEMEIS. And if we listen closely and believe in Him strongly and never waver from doing what our conscience tell us to do, we might also hear Him silently saying, "I AM TAKING CARE OF THE MATTER. Have Faith".
And before I sign off I would like to mention here that although I am writing as a Christian believer, I know that God has other people who love him in their own way. Their labeling and their reasoning may be different but if they love Him with all their heart, with all their mind, body and soul, and are sincere, and if that's all right with Him, then certainly its all right with me. There is only one God and he has many friends and many enemies that I know nothing about that he also loves and protects. It's just that I was born into a Christian family and as such have grown up. And against the possibility of being misunderstood by some of my family who are sincere Baptists and are wonderful and sincere believers, I will say, in my own defense, I was a sassy brat, sometimes, as a child. But I usually spoke my mind. A sample of my rudeness:
Once during a discussion of religion at our dinner table, Christian religion no less, I heard this comment. I don't know if I asked a question and got this answer nor do I know exactly why I replied in such a manner. But when I or someone else, but I believe it must have been an answer to my question whether other people of other religions would also go to heaven, someone said no. They all had to believe as they did. I turned up my nose and said defiantly: That's ridiculous, it will certainly be a boring place. I grew up and married a Catholic, became one, and for a time tried to be like those whom I associated with.
PS:
Before long, however, they too became somewhat boring and uppity. I learned that they too sometimes sinned against the truths I had learned from their religion. I often found myself looking back to the beliefs of my grandparents whom I knew to be saintly. I did this while hanging on to the truths I learned from the Catholics. Then later on, I began to see my place in the overall picture of earth and heaven. I finally found God to be nearer than I had thought possible. He seemed to be there when I, after ignoring him for a while, needed him. At around the age of fifty, I let Him takeover and life ever since has been absolutely wonderful. It has not been without its crosses and its heartaches and its pain but it has been one long learning session.
What about my distinction as a believer? Am I a Catholic or a Baptist or whatever. I don't know! I can't call myself a full Catholic, I can't eat wheat therefore can't go to communion. (I could go and get gluten free wafers but why the bother. I reasoned if God created me not to eat wheat, then I would not eat it. I would not try to get around this problem with human solutions. But I believe the truths I learned from them wholeheartedly, and I love God wholeheartedly. I see all Christian believers in the same light. I see other God loving people as being true to their heredity. In other words I leave the matter up to Him. And in still other words, I am now more in understanding with my earlier upbringing and its common sense values I learned that have served me all my life.
Therefore, to conclude this How to learn to Love Your Enemies blog, I would advise to simplify your life. Learn how to be yourself, the person God created you to be, and learn how to love yourself first. Then loving those who are directly opposite to your beliefs may be easier. It may not be all in who is right and who is wrong, it may have a lot to do with loving yourself as your neighbor. And we all know neighbors who don't always act as we think they should act, are often unlovable. But we love them anyway, especially when we get to know them better. Why? It's simple! He created them for other reasons than that of our own. And the more we understand them, the more we will learn how to love them. Another way of Loving Your Enemies is to see them as lessons in kindness to be learned.
