Praying for the one who wronged you

"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

This is the command we quote most readily and practise least. And we should say plainly why: because we hear it as a demand for a feeling. We assume the hurt has to stop before obedience can start.

Jesus asks for nothing of the sort. Look at the four verbs: love, bless, do good, pray. Three of them are actions. None of them describes an emotion. You can bless without tenderness. You can do good to someone you avoid. You can pray for a name that is hard to say out loud.

This matters, because a lot of people carry needless guilt. They think they are disobeying as long as the wound is still raw. No: the wound can stay raw while obedience begins. The feeling sometimes follows. Often it takes years. It is not the entry condition.

There is something else. Pray for someone long enough and you will no longer be able to reduce him to what he did. It happens almost mechanically. You start to see a man with a fear, a history, a father. That is not excusing anything — the wrong remains a wrong. But the person stops being only a wrong.

And we should be clear about what this command does not require. It does not tell you to go back into a house where you are beaten. It does not tell you to trust someone who has not changed. Blessing is not making yourself available to be destroyed. Many believers have stayed in dangerous situations believing they were obeying this verse; they were obeying a misreading of it.

Today. Take one name. Just one — the one that came to mind immediately, the one making this uncomfortable to read. Say simply: Lord, bless him. You do not have to elaborate. You do not have to mean it. Say it, and say it again tomorrow.

The day you mean it, you will know something has been healed in you — and not only in him.

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