When God said, love your enemies and pray for them, I don't think He completely thought it through. Or maybe He did but He just wanted to set another impossible task to salvation ahead for us, right up there with, no premarital sex and do not imbibe in alcohol.
Enemies are by their nature vile people. People who have hurt you in some way, people you expected so much from and they just fucked you, people who just let go of your friendship and stabbed you in the back on their way to somewhere or just for their own selfish interest. There are various interpretations of the "enemy." This just represents a small subset for me. I suppose for every American, its the Taliban and the orchestrators of 9/11, those vile, heartless people. How can God surely expect us to love those people after everything that they did to us? Seriously??
Most of my enemies are not that vile. They are just people who have hurt me deeply or disappointed me and knew in their actions that they were disappointing me, ("Tepid Enemies"). But you know what gets me about my life is, most of these Tepid Enemies have gone on to become mucho successful. Every one of them. It's like a test of my life that everyone who hurts me goes on to achieve their life dreams and I am the sweet fairy who spread my love (or hate, however you choose to look at it) seed that helped them to blossom and become all that they've wanted to be.
People that fall into these Tepid Enemy category are usually bosses who fire you for no reason; ex-boyfriends who unjustly go back to their exes; co-workers who backstab you in order to get a promotion; distant cousins who promised to help you get contacts but now ignore your call; college roommates who spent their college years spreading gossip about you; and people who enjoy seeing you fall and sometimes even orchestrate the fall.
Yesterday, I found myself deeply upset that a current enemy of mine had succeeded in something. I don't want to be that person. Yes, I want them to apologize for being the colossal (or purposeful) asshole that they were to me, but I don't want to be that person who prays for someone's downfall and secretly hopes for it. But the act of having the Tepid Enemy, it's just hard to show them love, to hope the best for them, to wish them well. Because when you really get down to it, they don't wish the same for you so why reciprocate, why waste a moment of prayer wishing them well. It's just my luck that the second you screw me over, your life gets better, while mine remains the same that makes it even worse because I can't even rejoice that you got some retribution for screwing me over.
Lord help not to hate so much as I want to hate the people that have wronged me, help me to be at par with their success so I can rejoice in my own as well as theirs...Amen.
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