Today is the day to love my enemies. What a kick-off to
forty days of improvement!
There aren’t that many true enemies around nowadays—at least
of the ‘kill or be killed’ variety. Most of the enemies I encounter are of the
everyday genre that keep me from being my best self, that tap-dance on my last
nerve and drive me to behavior unworthy of any Christian.
Who’s the enemy? It’s the co-worker who somehow manages to
make me feel inferior at every encounter. (Is an enemy just somebody you’d like
to throttle now and then?) It’s the guy who zooms past me in traffic, then cuts
in front of me to take the next exit. It’s the stoplight system that sees me
coming and stops me at every blessed intersection when I’m in a hurry. (You
gotta love stoplights?) It’s the
bad grammar and misspelled words in a newspaper article or Facebook post. It’s
all of the above: the myriad occasions when I stop seeing how fortunate I AM,
and focus on what’s in my way--on the impediments, rather than the journey.
So, how do you love all this? Can I look at these personal
stumbling blocks as simply ‘first-world problems’ and turn them into occasions
for gratitude? When that guy at work flaunts his so-called ‘superior’ skills, can
I look for something he can teach me? The rude woman who jumps the line at the
bank gives me an extra moment to get my own transaction in order, right? I
should say ‘thank you’ (without the dose of sarcasm I’d normally inject) The
stoplights? Well, I have to work on them some more. Maybe if I resolve to say a
quick prayer at every intersection (as long as it’s not “Please, God, let it
stay green..”) I can turn even that into an opportunity for grace.
Loving enemies…maybe the biggest enemy is myself. Loving my
enemy may be as simple as changing my own combative attitude to something more
like acceptance and peace.
[Tomorrow’s action: “Walk,
carpool, bike, or bus it.”—Now, THAT shouldn’t be too hard…]
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