Love of Enemies

Love your enemies?  I never really think I have any enemies.  Ok, maybe crack (what Number Three Son and I call those pint-sized cartons of BEN & JERRY'S), and vodkabreakfasts, but no real enemies.  There is no one looking to end my poor life (not that I am aware of. . . eh, perhaps sometimes, The husband). . . so how could I understand, experientially, Jesus' demand to love my enemies?   Through the years I have thought about loving mean people, unjust people, abortionists... or people who have hurt my children, etc.,  and I have thought that I loved them.  I didn't HATE them and did, sometimes, pray for them.  But recently I have learned a little more of what this means having acquired a few new enemies.

The best kind of love, we are told, is the sacrificial kind.  The kind that gives of itself to others freely, imitating Jesus Christ -  loving our enemies and neighbors from the heart.  We are to show our love  with good works fitting a servant and child of God.   Feeling this love physically may be present or not, and if present, will fly in and out of one's sensory radar  as predictably as the wind.  Nevertheless, we are to obey and are richly blessed if we do.  The goal is not to "have feelings of love", but to love.

I can't say that I have had feelings of love for my (so-called) enemies very often (excluding crack and vodka),  but I learned at the very start that love is an act of the will and feelings come last, if at all.  (Thank you good Protestant lovers of Sacred Scripture who "discipled" me when I first believed.)    So, when I was overwhelmed recently with powerful feelings of love and respect for Christians who were calling me names and hurling false accusations my way,  I had to pause.  What a great thing our Merciful God does for His weak children! He comes to our defense in such a personal and mysterious way when He grants such a consolation as this.  The personal touch of God, which no one else sees, is the way He rescues us from the hands of those who hate us!  He grants us the gift of Love when we truly do wish to love.  What a beautiful glimpse at the Heart of Jesus, Who always loves perfectly.

God knows that we are weak and needy and often need the grace of encouragement now and then.  The Saints tell us to put our hope in God and not men.  The "it's ok hug" from man cannot compare to the consolation which God gives when He grants the grace of these feelings of love for one's accuser. He sends each of us just what we need when we need it.  I believe that when He does this He is showing us that what we think is elusive or unattainable is right in front of us all the time.  If we are loving our enemies and doing good toward them, we are loving them!  Feelings or not...love has been there all the time.  The sweet consolation of sensory love only reminds us of the reality of Love.

It was there all along. . .