What Would Happen if We Loved Instead?

"But I say to you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you."
Matthew 5: 44

When I arrived in Haiti this last trip, I had a hard time reconnecting to our girls. I could see some of their hearts growing cold toward the Lord and other people. It broke my heart. I kept my distance because I didn't want to force a renewed relationship with them. I prayed and asked the Lord for wisdom on words to say to them and the patience to wait for the right timing. There was one girl in particular that I had bonded with since day 1 of my first trip to Haiti. But during this trip I could see she was absent, sad, unwilling to participate in corporate worship and Bible studies. I was concerned, wondering why there was this change in her.

The last Tuesday I was there, I attended their girl's Bible study at the Manasseros' house. Sue was sick, so Bill was teaching. I was the only other American there. Bill gave a great Bible study on love and started a discussion among the girls on if it's been hard for them to love everyone around them all the time. Like all of us, in truth, they admitted, yes!! I could still see their resistance to listening...arms crossed, eyes rolling, some starting to fall asleep. Tough crowd! But Bill, with fatherly love, kept on with his lesson on love, undeterred by their attitudes. "Does God just ask us to love our family and friends and people that are nice to us?" Bill asked. A corporate, "No, our enemies too!" was their response. They could repeat this from the Bible, yet their was such a disconnect to their hearts. Bill then said, "Yes, God even calls us to pray for them. So we're all going to do something difficult right now. We are going to think of the person that is our enemy. This is going to be hard because this is someone who has done, or is still doing, really mean and evil things to you. And we're going to pray for them, ask God to help us to forgive and love them."

Then, the girl who I mentioned earlier who was absent and sad, quickly said, "What if they did something really really bad to you?" Instantly, I felt the Spirit moving within me to speak a word to her and the girls. It was time. In a nutshell, this is what I felt the Lord wanted to communicate to the girls, "I know it's hard to forgive people, I have a hard time forgiving people that have done bad things to me. But when I do, I think about Jesus. He did nothing but love people when he was on earth. And what did they do to him?" They responded, "Killed him, made fun of him, spit on him, beat him." "Yes, that's right. And what was his response? He loved them anyway. And when He was on the cross He even prayed for them. He prayed, 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do.' The people that did horrible things to you, they may not have known what they were doing and some know exactly what they were doing. Either way, we're called to forgive them, love them and pray for them. What the Lord has shown me is that we have even more reason to pray for people that have hurt us. You know why? Because who knows...if you pray for them and they turn to the Lord and turn from their sin, they won't continue to do the evil things they're doing. And you know what, they won't do the same evil thing they did to you to someone else." At that moment I looked at the girl that originally asked the question and I could see her eyes starting to water.

I then shared, "Just like how Jonah, when called by the Lord to call the people of Ninevah to repentance, he ran the other way. He got swallowed up by a fish. In the same way, God is calling us to call these people that hurt us to repentance and to forgive them. When we choose not to forgive or do what Christ tells us to do, just like Jonah, we are in darkness--not free. We forgive because God wants us to be free from the sadness and hurt that comes from unforgiveness."

With that said, Bill played the worship song, "We bow our hearts, we bend our knees, Oh Spirit come make us humble. We turn our eyes, from evil things, Oh Lord we cast down our idols. Give us clean hands, give us pure hearts..." Some of the girls knelt down, they were broken and hungry to be close to God again. Bill invited anyone who wanted prayer to come to the middle for he and I to pray over. Four girls came forward. Breakthrough. Only through the presence of Jesus in our midst. God is good!

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty with which Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
Galatians 5: 1