Have you ever prayed for your enemies? (POLL and question)

[zeroturbulence]

Have you ever prayed for your enemies?

It has to be one of the toughest things to do and probably ranks high on the chart of advanced humility, but Jesus himself said that we should do it.

Have you ever done it? What was it like? Did you experience any results or spiritual changes that you can tell about?

If you've never done it, please tell us why. Is it just too difficult for you to do, or maybe you didn't know we were supposed to do it.. or maybe it just didn't cross your mind?

Please share your thoughts on this..

 

[hoss2576]

More than anything, I generally pray for my heart to be changed toward them. I don't like calling anyone an enemy, but there are people that I have an extremely difficult time. If my heart can be improved then maybe the relationship changes.

 

[zeroturbulence]

Oops, I forgot to add the scripture..

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
(Matthew 5:44 KJV)

 

[gypsygirl]

zt, is this your idea of rising to a challenge??? ; p

i don't have "enemies". most all of my relationships end with a whimper, not a bang. so i'm not one for hatred, and the like. i've been betrayed by colleagues and some occasional acquaintances, but that seldom elicits enemy-worthy vitriol.

when someone offends me, i find that when i pray for them, it helps me to (better) change my heart attitude towards them. i start to empathize with who they are, and what they're also facing. it becomes an important piece of me forgiving them, and sometimes, this is all a rather quick process.

for one person in my life, it's been a painful, protracted series of events that involve me praying for her pretty much all the time, so that my heart doesn't get too hardened by her/actions.

with lots of repetition in the cycle.

 

[PennEd]

Yes. Incredibly hard, but I try regularly to pray for obama, the enemy of my values.

 

[wwjd_kilden]

Unless you count the salespeople in Norway, I don't think I have any enemies
... I have done it a few times, but I must admit it happened after I was, uh, "rid of" them (had moved, switched classes etc)

 

[Pipp]

The way I was taught is its hard to stay bitter against someone you pray for . It's proven true in my life. This thread is actually convicting ... There are about 4 people in my life who thrive on bringing people down and are really trying to hurt my church right now and I have more bad feelings for them than I have anyone in years because I have not prayed for them. They've caused so much hurt I honestly didn't want them to get right... I just want them to go away. Thanks Zero. God knows when we need reminders and who to send along to remind us.

 

[MissCris]

I've done it a few times. Though, like others said, I don't really have enemies. I pray for the people in my life who seem unable to behave decently to anyone, if I remember. I used to pray for my ex every day...for years...hmm. We see how that's turned out.

 

[Yowie]

I've found it to be like Pipp said, "...it's hard to stay bitter at someone you pray for." I've found it was a very difficult journey, but God has brought me to be able to genuinely pray for them. I don't know if it will be easy if I ever have future enemies, but I trust that God will bring me or keep me at that place where I can and will do it. There is freedom in it too, where the person is freed from me and me from them. I also find that when I'm praying for them I'm not viewing them as an enemy anymore, but a fellow broken man/woman. I don't know if that changes whether they consider me an enemy anymore or not, but I don't have worry about that. The God of love will do what He wants to do with them too.

 

[Tintin]

I haven't had enemies since my TAFE days but I prayed for them a number of times. It was incredibly difficult and I hated it but in the end praying for them helped to free me from their influence and hopefully blessed them.

 

[cinder]

Great question. I think my first response to people I don't like is to try to cut them out of my world and life. If that doesn't work then I may have to resort to prayer to keep from becoming some sort of unholy, unchristian jerk around them. I don't know if I'd call them enemies but I remember a couple situations where prayer really helped me.

In high school there was a guy in my class who could be a real jerk and seemed intent on ridiculing me for my faith. But as I prayed for him over one summer I began to see him more as a hurting individual who was lashing out out of his pain rather than as just a jerk and a problem to be dealt with.

The other one I remember was when I was helping out with starting a new church after college. The assistant pastor and his wife were only a few years older than me and I absolutely could not stand her. But knowing they were having a tight time financially, God led me to bless them with some valentine's day money to just go out together. She was almost crying when she thanked me and while I won't say it made everything perfect; it affected me enough that I remember it a decade later.

 

[SweetShelly35]

Sometimes it is so difficult!! We are commanded to do so, and I have blind faith in what He says so I know it must be good.

 

[StoneThrower]

Have you ever prayed for your enemies?

It has to be one of the toughest things to do and probably ranks high on the chart of advanced humility, but Jesus himself said that we should do it.

Have you ever done it? What was it like? Did you experience any results or spiritual changes that you can tell about?

If you've never done it, please tell us why. Is it just too difficult for you to do, or maybe you didn't know we were supposed to do it.. or maybe it just didn't cross your mind?

Please share your thoughts on this..

Yes, and it wasn't an imprecatory prayer I don't have any enemies. I did however have a neighbor whose house faced mine that he had a flood light that he would leave on all night pointed right at my bedroom window. It really got up my nose so I had to start praying for him there were other issues as well he would scream in the middle of the night and have orgies at his house and a lot of young kids with loud cars that would come to them. I know because he invited me over. So I started praying for him and his family. After a year he came over to return some mis-delivered mail and we talked it out. two weeks latter I came home and my neighbor hood was filled with police cars. He had blown out his brains with a shot gun because he had been arrested and released pending trail for raping his 13 year old daughter. I really felt sorry for him and his family I think there was some demonic things going on in that home.

Praying for someone is the only way I could get my own heart right and not hold a grudge.

 

[Fenner]

I really don't have enemies, per say, but I've prayed for people who've angered me. Also leaders of the world I don't agree with. I've prayed for more of a change of heart for the people that live under them, like Kim Jong Yung, North Korea, or someone of an oppressive nation.

 

[persNickety]

It's hard to say, I've used the words before but didn't feel anything. Not sure what it's suppose to feel like. There was no spiritual release, so I wonder if in my heart, it didn't happen. Or I didn't mean it. Relationship-wise, I never felt resentment or the need to forgive because I was never hurt so much that I needed to. There has been one person that I have not forgiven, that will take time.

 

[JesusLives]

I have a few times and this is relatively new to me as in past 4-6 years... It dawned on me thinking about someone that was causing me some problems - (really probably Holy Spirit revealing to me) - that this person probably did not have anyone praying for them and they needed someone to do it and since at the time they were a thorn in my side I felt that I should pray for them. Did they change? Maybe not but I certainly did towards them and when the older man yelled at me in the parking lot because he did not like the way I parked my car....my human side wanted to yell back at him but I was reminded maybe he did not have anyone to pray for him either so I did.

Then the idea got bigger and when I hear my young neighbors arguing through the wall of my townhome I pray for them to remember that they love each other and at a stop light a couple were arguing in a truck and I prayed the same prayer for them that they remember at one time they loved each other. So many people in our world don't know what a loving God we have and they need people to pray for them because Satan is certainly working overtime to destroy all humans because he hates us so much because of our ability to choose salvation.

Also when I hear emergency sirens I try to send a prayer up for help in that situation that God be with who ever is on the other end needing assistance.

So really whether people are our enemies or not we live in a hurting world that needs Jesus so pray for everyone you come across - your prayer might be the only one they ever get.

 

[felasingson]

It's really difficult to pray for them full of our hear but the Bible expecting us to pray for them so what to do ? it will work or not... Lol !

 

[seoulsearch]

One of the toughest things God has ever asked me to do is to pray forgiveness over those who have molested children.

As an adult, I have often made friends with adults who were once victims of horrendous abuses when they were children, and in some cases, due to working with the public, etc., I would meet their ex-abuser face-to-face. One in particular brought about feelings of both nausea and wanting to punch him in the face at the same time. But God whispered to me and said, "No, Kim, I want you to forgive him." I couldn't do it for the longest time. I can't say, of course, that I have any good feelings about these people. I struggled with feeling that praying for the abuser meant I was betraying the abused.

But I had a picture in my head of the state of the heart of one person I knew in particular--I saw this person as a grown adult having a choke hold on their abuser--but because of this, they had no peace and no way of moving on with their life. I felt like God saying, "This person can't forgive their abuser, but you can."

It took a LOT. But I finally prayed. And little by little, after that... the person I was friends with later told me, "God has been after me for years to forgive this person, but I never could. Seeing you do what you've done (I had told this person about how God convicted me to pray for their abuser, and I was very afraid they would see me as being the enemy too because of it) just ripped that last bit of stubbornness out of my heart. I'm going to forgive him."

Forgiveness is one of my biggest struggles--I have to fight and ask God to really deal with me in order to do it every time--but I never knew how truly powerful it can be until this person and I went through this particular ordeal together.

Praying for someone you don't want to pray for can literally save someone's life, and it might be the life of someone you are close to or love very deeply.

 

[IloveyouGod]

It's funny, I just came home from bible study and we spoke today about the same thing but addressed in Luke 6:27-38. And we basically said that God is expecting A LOT from us at a VERY HIGH level!! Christ did all of that and we are suppose to be Christ like, so we are also expected to be able to do it. So in order to reach that level we need to look at the logic in Luke 6: 32-34, which does make sense!! It will also help if we look at the reward we will get from God that is mentioned in Luke 6: 35 and 38. What's also helpful is to look at the trouble one will get into if we don't follow God's command in Luke 6: 37-38. However, it is hard for us as human beings to start off at that high level, so we need to exercise first. So for example we could pray about it in our hearts like what hoss2576 said. I myself decide not to have bad or good feelings towards those who harm me (I won't call it enemies because I don't have enemies) So when I have neutral feelings that is not good or bad, God starts to work with me n' help me to forgive and eventually I get to that high level.

 

[Esanta]

Have you ever prayed for your enemies?

It has to be one of the toughest things to do and probably ranks high on the chart of advanced humility, but Jesus himself said that we should do it.

Have you ever done it? What was it like? Did you experience any results or spiritual changes that you can tell about?

If you've never done it, please tell us why. Is it just too difficult for you to do, or maybe you didn't know we were supposed to do it.. or maybe it just didn't cross your mind?

Please share your thoughts on this..

The reason the bible places such value on empathy, in my mind, is because it removes the need for an enemy to actually be seen by a person as an enemy. We tend to think about our own interests, and if someone is against our interests, they are an enemy, when at the root of their actions, lie their own interests. They are no different from us.

If someone sets out to deliberately destroy your interests, it may be for the purpose of satisfying their own hate (which is at that particular time, one of their interests), or it is because your interests are opposed to their interests.

It's a lot harder to view someone as an enemy when you become them in mind and understand what drives them to do what they do in their terms. There's no use trying to understand someone in the context of your own wants and desires, because if they are opposed to them, they will always be someone that encroaches on your happiness. It's better to try to understand them from their own points of view, then you can really see that you aren't so different. Considering yourself as another is important.

And couple this with Jesus' teaching of selflessness (it's better to give than receive) and this creates a two-way dissolution of your own selfish interests and your own animosity towards another person. What effectively happens is that there is an equilibrium where you view this person not as any inherent enemy or friend (in that you place more or less value on them as a person) but they become just a person, an equal human being.

Then if you are to truly act selflessly, you will act out of interest for their well-being rather than your own. As Jesus says 'even the heathens' are good to those whom they like, the same way that all of us are good to those who we like, and are good to those who are out for our interests, but rarely do we make our biggest motive to simply stop being out for our interests and start looking out for others', regardless of our own.

It is in essence placing value on your own interests above anothers' which creates the idea of 'enemy' in the first place.