I am going to ask for you all to pray for me as I go through this, because today I prayed a scary prayer. In my experience, God generally grants people the opportunity to learn whatever it is that they ask God to teach them, so I would love your support in this prayer I made today. Anyways- So I try to let the spirit speak through me in prayer, and this morning as I was spending time with the lord I came across this passage :
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." Matthew 5:43-45.
Then I thought, "Who are my enemies? Do I have any real enemies besides Satan making it hard for me to do ministry or other things?" I am not really sure that I do. We all have people that get on our nerves from time to time. I think this is normal, due to personality differences we will not be fully able to get along with everybody. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying you can not love everyone. I just think there are always people in our lives that we bang heads against, not so literally sometimes and other times quite literally. And other times, opposites do attract like that dumb sitcom "Dharma and Greg". Or my co-leader and one of her good friends who disagree on much of everything other than the fact they believe in Jesus.
What I am trying to say (without rambling) is that there are people who we don't get along with, but these people are different from enemies. Webster defines enemy like this:
1. One that is antagonistic to another; especially one seeking to injure, overthrow, or confound an opponent
2. Something harmful or deadly
I guess the point could be made that anyone you don't get along with can be considered "antagonistic". But I don't think that is all what Jesus is saying here. He says "pray for those who persecute you". I don't know of anybody right now that is persecuting me. Well as I am writing this I just had another thought- since we all belong to the body of Christ, isn't anyone that persecutes a fellow believer or the church as a whole an enemy? Yea, I know this. But still I guess when I was in prayer and while I read this passage this morning I was pondering over personal enemies. In high school there were many times people made fun of Christians and would make it a point to give believers a hard time. This was done far too easily as questions such as "If there is a God why would he allow [insert catastrophe here] happen?" And these questions were all to given to kids who believed in Christ but were still immature spiritually, they were only kids. I remember a time when we were in some computer class and one of guys thought it would be funny to make fun of the teacher, who was openly a Christian, by playing Christian music via Internet radio and mocking it.
Additionally, I had a manager for a long time who was very atheistic. (Yes atheistic, because a true atheist is a scholar in religion and has studied most all of them and has come to the conclusion through research that there can not be a God. This was not his case) He would make remarks, although always in a light-hearted way, to the me and others who were Christians and would always try and prove atheism was correct. Well, it turned out that this actually helped me and others as we questioned our faith and put research into it. Anyways, I did not really take it that harshly and would always end the conversation in "well it doesn't change the fact that I am praying that God will reveal himself to you and that you will see what it is to have a relationship with him." He would always laugh it off, but I meant that. I did pray for him, consistently. And you know what, he is now involved in a church with one of the other guys I used to work with and told me he is a believer now. Wow, I think I am getting a little off track... Anyways, I don't really know that right now I have enemies.
So you are probably wondering why the title of this post is "scary prayer" by now. Well I could not think of any personal enemies who are persecuting me. And I couldn't think of anybody besides Satan holding me back from my ministry. So I prayed-you ready for this?-that God will put enemies in my front, so that I can pray for them and so I could be challenged. I feel that maybe I have become to comfortable in my faith and I have taken it too casually. I am not looking at my faith in Christ as something that is urgent which is what I should do. I have almost become numb to any hindrances in growing in my faith.
Currently, the only thing holding me back in my faith is me. I do this by not giving him enough time or submitting everything in my life to him. I am trying to learn what it means to offer everything I do as an act of worship to God. Such as my work, or exercising or driving. Anyways, I am personally responsible for not letting God work in my life. Which is why I prayed for "enemies" to come into my life. I want to relearn what it is like to have to rely on God. Do you ever feel like you are not completely relying on God in everything? For instance- God is the reason I made it to work today. He gave me this day, am I truly grateful, are we truly grateful? Or do we just take for granted the things he puts in our lives?
(By the way, Kudos if you actually read this post in its entirety. Sorry for its monstrousity...)
Friday, February 8, 2008
scary prayer
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4 comments:
I have been thinking about this for a few days now, and I'm still not sure what to think. Matthew 10:34 is the verse about Jesus not coming to bring peace, but a sword. It makes me think of that. I also think of people kicking you in the balls and saying "what, I read it on you blog that you were looking for enemies." Mostly I think of Crofford doing that, and it makes me laugh.
Another thing I think of is the end times. Who knows if that will be soon, or in the distant future, but I really think that as it draws up on the end we will have very clear enemies. As Christians we will endure all the persecutions that Christ endured and much more. So maybe you are praying for the end times???
The other thing I think of is how it sounds very ungrateful that you don't have enemies. It makes me wonder what someone hiding in a house church risking their lives to meet together might feel reading your blog. It makes me think of the places where its illegal to have a Bible, namely China. It's a toss up for me because I see your heart in this to know and love God more because though persecution comes santification, but I also think that we need to be grateful for the blessing God has given us that we are not persecuted. I think it is a scary prayer, you are right about that. Maybe start up a Vod cast about God on Youtube and deal with the responces...that kind of an enemy.
Matt, thanks for the comment. But it is not that I am ungrateful for my situation. In fact I am pretty sure that was more the Holy Spirit praying for me when I was praying for this prayer. As I said, I was extremely tired when I prayed this prayer so I didn't really ponder over it, I was just led into this prayer. In fact I am very grateful for the situation I am in, and my friends, and my family and how supportive they are to me. Also, I feel that things have been too comfortable for me. I feel a push of reality gives me a motive to seek Him out. Just like when I went through that really hard time in the summer after I graduated. This tough time really helped me recognize my Savior and learn to trust Him.
I am not sure what this prayer really means. I'll be honest, I just know that things have been comfortable and I haven't really felt like I have grown too much in my faith for some time, even though I regularly do quiet times and pray. So, to conclude, yes I am very grateful. But I also respect those that are not so blessed in their lives with freedom.
I guess what I am saying is that if there was someone or something in my life trying to hold me back, I could learn more about how to trust God and learn how to love others better by praying for them. Appreciate your comments.
one more thing: I think God is telling me that it is not necessarily that I don't have enemies. It is that I need to seek them out and find out who and what they are so that I can pray for them and pray them down. Through this I will learn what it means to rely on God and fully allow God to work and no so much myself. From "The Purpose Driven Life" -It is not about me. It is about the Savior and the kingdom of God. Through trusting and leaning on his understanding, I will become less and he will be more evident. Which is the point.
I wasn't saying you were being ungrateful for your situation, I just know its something I catch myself in from time to time. I mean I really see myself being complacent sometimes. It's a tough place to be you know. We are instructed in scripture to "rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is God will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thess 5:16-18 I think its easy to take on the sense of entitlement that come from living as an American. It's the in the world of the world thing again. We live in a me first culture, and yet we are called to a lifestyle of putting others first.
So what can we do. It's clear that if we preach the gospel as we should, we will come up against opposition. I know we aren't likely to be physically persecuted, but there is a good possibility that we can and will be emotionally and spiritually persecuted by people who disagree with us. Anyone with convictions makes somebody mad.
I mean your other option is being less nice to people all the time.
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