“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’[q] and hate your enemy. 44 But I say, love your enemies![r] Pray for those who persecute you! 45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.
Matthew 5:44
I don’t have answers for everything.
I’m rarely able to wrap complicated theology with a neat, tidy bow.
This article should serve to demonstrate my conflicted state of mind.
You might have heard about the dude who roundhouse kicked a woman.
Unless you’re a devout anarchist, you probably don’t support that behavior.
If you’re a professed Christian, you won’t be surprised that the kicked woman said this:
What this man did was an act of assault and I intend on pressing charges. But he’s also loved by the Father, so please pray for him.
Pray for him…
Aaaagh!
Matthew 5:44 haunts me almost every day.
Prayers for my enemies are among the lamest, most utterly convoluted utterances I ever utter.
Don’t believe me?
Here’s my attempt to pray for the roundhouse kicker:
*doesn’t bow head or close eyes*
*considers posture irrelevant when praying*
Well, Lord, here I am again with the same dilemma I’ve told you about over and over and over again. I’m approaching the Creator of the Universe under the pretense of telling you what to do. I feel stupid. You’re omniscient. You don’t need me to explain the situation. My understanding is that you saw that dude kick that woman before it happened. Like, before any of us were even born. And you also heard this prayer. So, I’m already over my head. But you know THAT too.
You know that I’m not qualified to make suggestions to you. Yet, you told me to pray. You told me have faith that you’re listening. And I believe you ARE listening. That’s why I’m self-conscious! I’m lecturing someone who is way smarter than me. (You don’t know what’s that’s like…no offense.) So before I pray for anyone else, I’m asking for a little peace. Remind me that you’re fully aware of my shortcomings and you want to hear from me anyway.
Okay. Now help me understand how to pray for roundhouse kick guy. I can’t ask you to convert him to Christianity. I just don’t believe that’s how it works. I won’t ask you to override his free will by force. I hope I don’t have that much power! I hope you’re not going to brainwash people at my request. Because if it’s possible to pray people into faith, it’s also possible to pray people out of faith. Which means my faith is subject to the whims of other believers. It means rationality doesn’t matter. My beliefs would change whenever another disciple asked you to “enlighten” me.
And I can’t ask you to “create opportunities for kick guy to hear the truth”. According to the Bible, you’re already doing that. You’re always chasing after lost sheep. So I feel foolish requesting that you “open his eyes”. You already opened them. (That’s how he was able to connect with the roundhouse!) Plus, I don’t think the guy is blind to his sin. I think he knows he’s wrong. I think you gave him a conscience. I think you’re convicting him. He’s choosing to rebel.
So, here we are again, Father! I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve prayed this muddled mess. I’m going to do what I always do and just cop-out. Do whatever you think is best with kick guy. I’m certain you’ll do the right thing. Personally, I hope he is arrested and prosecuted. It would serve to remind all of us that we shouldn’t let our anger control us.
Give me wisdom! Please. In these troubled, turbulent days, make me wise.
Amen
There it is.
I’m not proud of it but it’s the best I can do.
Feel free to offer your thoughts in the comments.
Maybe God will use you to answer my prayer!
10 Responses
I think that prayer was pretty perfect actually. God’s got this, and you seemed like you went with that.
John I understand your conflict, but I think you may be missing God’s reason for asking us to pray. To pray for our enemies teaches us, His children, to love the way that He loves. To have compassion for others the way that He does. Think about Moses, he prayed for God to “change His mind”. God doesn’t change His mind, but Moses needed to learn how much he loved the people and to see how compassionate God is even when He is justifiably angry. Look at Abraham who bargained with God to save his nephew, Lot, in Sodom. We both know God already knew there weren’t 10 righteous people but Abraham needed to see God’s compassion for an entire town and recognize his own. This life is a training ground for us to learn to be like Christ and prayer is a key component to that process.
perfect prayer. it’s honest…in all the ways
I understand your struggle. Some people just make bad choices. Why pray for them? It’s so much easier to take the Pharisee path to prayer and thank God that we’re nothing like the morons around us. Thankfully, we have no jurisdiction over others’ choices. I agree with you that praying for God to use His power to change other people to suit our whims would make Him a capricious God indeed, even if at some childish level it might make us feel better. I’m sure you understand as well as I that prayer is more about changing our own hearts. Prayer, if we let it, changes our perspective to realize God is bigger than any challenging situation (or idiot) we face, that we lack control regardless of what we tell ourselves, and that it takes just as much Grace to cover those wretched people as it does to cover us- because without Him we’re just as wretched. If prayer can humble us that far, maybe God can actually use us.
Because without God, we’re all just like kick guy.
I think we have all prayed this a time or ten. Seeing it in writing only confirms that prayer is to change me soften my heart towards others even when I don’t feel like they deserve because then I am reminded I don’t deserve it. I wish I could remember where I heard the idea that when God was making His plan he knew who would pray and when and in so doing shape the ones praying. It sounded good at the time or I could have completely misheard it.
*doesn’t bow head or close eyes* *considers posture irrelevant when praying*
Ha! I’m going to suggest that posture really does matter. Pray anywhere and everywhere, but if you can also pay attention to what your body is doing. We stand for worship, we kneel to pray, and these things are not meaningless rituals, they serve a purpose,they help to align our minds with the task we are engaged in. Second, pray big, pray boldly, don’t be afraid of running contrary to God’s will or of saying something wrong. He already knows what’s in our heart! Also,if we can listen to God in our prayers that’s a real blessing. God actually asks Jonah, “are you sore angry??” Yes! Yes, I’d really like to go smite my enemies! David is praying something very similar. It’s honest, it’s heartfelt, and in the process it allows God to speak to whatever is going on within you.
Great prayer, John!
I, too, am conflicted when it comes to praying for people who do awful things.
I like to pray with the Psalms. I’m amazed at what David prayed “for” his enemies. (Break their jaws, etc…) I do wish I had the freedom to do that, but Jesus asked us to pray for them, to forgive them, to not curse them, to be merciful. That is so impossibly hard, at times.
I did experience something amazing, once. (I started to write in more detail, but have shortened it.)
We have a really gross, evil neighbor, with an even worse daughter. After his poor wife’s death I felt sorry for him, but was startled to receive in my spirit an actual warning not to be around him, or even to pray for him: that he was beyond my prayers, (the Holy Spirit had ceased striving with him.)
That was scary to experience God actually letting someone exercise their free will to the extent that their soul is lost, yet it’s in the Bible.
I went on walks everyday, walking my dog and gathering dandelions for my bunnies. He began waiting for me, sitting on a bench near the road where he knew I walked, drinking straight from full bottles of hard liquor, with empties piled under his bench.
I declined his daily offers to come over to the house. He’d stagger over to the road and start 1-sided, vitriolic conversation: lonely, hate-the-world, everyone who wronged him, politicians, mean stuff while pumping up his ego (he believed he was smarter than anyone else). He would tell me how beautiful my eyes were, that his son and friend liked me, too, and told him to seek me out. (Creepy, and I would leave ASAP.). One day, he grabbed me, sprained my wrist and tried to force himself on me. Fortunately, I was able to get away. The next day, I had mace with me.
There is more, but I am grateful I was warned, wished I had changed my walk earlier, and am truly amazed to learn there are living, hateful, evil people in this world that are beyond prayers. That God Himself, as much as He loves them and grieves, will let them go.
There are only a few people in this world I have ceased praying for, so far. My neighbor, (anti-pope Francis) I call him Bergoglio, and a few others…
In the meantime, and confused and not perfectly, I ask God to help me forgive others as He does, and continue to pray for all those I can. I’ve done evil, and God has been beyond words merciful and loving toward me. I can hope the other jerks (like idiot roundhouse) can find Him, too, before it’s too late.
❤️🙏❤️
I’m glad you’re not proud of your prayers. Jesus hated proud, religious-ish people. Sometimes I get the impression He didn’t much care for ANY organized religion. I can’t think of one denominational habit or ritual or tightly held bit of dogma that Jesus did RELIGIOUSLY (there’s your clue)… other than constantly talk with people and give them clues that pointed to the fact HE WAS, IN FACT… God incarnate.
“Oh… by the way… you’re eventually going to kill me for saying I’m God’s Son, and I’m still going to forgive you while I bleed out and suffocate on the cross because I’m coming back after three days of HELL to PROVE to you all that I Am, that I Am. It’s all good….” (that’s a paraphrase, I’m pretty sure.)
Humble yourselves. Know that I am God. Pray for your enemies even though you are being persecuted for my sake. We are in a battle against a spiritual realm, principalities and powers, spirits, good and evil… whatever you want to call it… this realm is as real as our bodies. (But yeah… we can’t see them… or can we?)
When I see you… I see a body. But when we talk, I’m not talking to a body… I’m talking to JOHN. (I know… deep weeds….)
The roundhouse guy, I like to call Soulless Meat Puppet, needs to have his body feel the consequences of his evil actions. The PERSON who we’ll call “Carl” that IS the spirit or soul that’s using that meat puppet for now… needs prayer and an eye-opening experience that will show him the power of God. We’ll call that… LOVE.
And that, my friend, can only come from followers of Christ who know how to pray and act the way Christ prayed and acted. To Love those as you would love yourself. (a better paraphrase.)
Your words/prayers, caused me to think on these things today, and put my thoughts into action while I pray today. So be pleased (not proud) that your prayers were effective and have been heard. Lives will change and ironically, it’ll have nothing directly to do with the roundhouse guy… but rather that you were obedient and humbly prayed even though you are pretty sure you don’t know what you’re doing or if it works. You were obedient and had FAITH… that God makes things work for good… even with the words of clueless people like us.
Sorry for the rambling.
Wow! This one really made me think…hard. How much of a difference can I make? I mean, if I pray. I pray for His will to be done…is that necessary?
Maybe the prayer should be, “I really don’t know what to say to you about this…but I’m on your side. Where else could I go? You gave me life. I’m not dead anymore. Maybe you will give kick guy life, too. That would be better for him, for sure.”
I get it. Thank you for the courage to admit it.