“But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Matthew 5:44

I chose this particular Bible verse because this a really tough one for me to accept, but also embrace as well, as is expected of any teaching of Jesus. As Americans, we have been inundated with the “language of war” in movies, books and even TV news. Terms like, “take no prisoners,” “scorched earth,” and “no mercy” describe ways of engaging our enemies, that are variably referred to as “foes,” “losers,” and “them.”

But in everyday life, who are our enemies? One possible example is people who have bullied, abused or otherwise have hurt us mentally, emotionally, spiritually or physically. Someone who has turned a friend against you by lying or otherwise betraying your trust. A coworker who took sole credit for an accomplishment at work that you played a major role in achieving. The scenarios are numerous.

I’ve had experiences in my life where I’ve been “enemies” with people simply because I didn’t know them. An example is my friend Greg whom I had a few bad encounters with in summer league baseball. We ended up going to the same high school and quickly became the best of friends, which we remain to this day (we exchanged texts just the other night about our upcoming class reunion this summer).

Recently, I was reading a book where the author described her pastor saying that loving your enemies is non-negotiable (Darn, that means I can’t “tap dance” around this one!). In trying to think of a person that would be difficult, if seemingly impossible to pray for, much less love, one name kept coming to mind: Vladimir Putin.

It is difficult for me as a Christian, and as a human being, to not characterize Putin for being anything but a monster. Yet, we are commanded to “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Although I’m not being persecuted by him directly, I would assert that myself, and numerous other people, are being persecuted by him indirectly, simply by monitoring his behavior).

Let’s turn to Scripture for a resolution to this dilemma. Deuteronomy 29:29 says: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, to observe all the words of the law.” And John 14:15: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” In other words, we should accept that some things are just unknowable to us, and we should obey Jesus’ commandments simply out of love for him.

Prayer: Help me with my discomfort in not knowing everything, and not having all the answers to life’s problems. Teach me that love is the pathway to faith and trust in You, which helps me to obey Your commandments. Amen.