Loving Our Enemies 

   “But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6: 27) 

   Some of Jesus’ teachings are harder than others.  In my mind, loving my enemies is one of the hardest.  How am I to love someone who hates me and wishes me harm?  But that is what Jesus has told me I must do, so I must try.

   St. Augustine said, “You don’t love in your enemies what they are, but what you would have them to become.”  What I am to love in my enemies is not what they are at this moment but as the child of God that they are even though they make not recognize that fact.  By loving them and praying for them, perhaps it will help them accept His love and turn to Him just as parents pray that their wayward children will return to them.

   I believe that love is the foundation of Christianity.  Without it we cannot be what God created us to be.  He is love and He desires that we love as He does, in the hope that even the worst of us will somehow find our way home.

   I still find it hard to love my enemies, those who hate me and would wish evil upon me, and I probably always will.  But I must look beyond who and what they may be today and pray for their reconciliation with God.