Love. Thy. Enemy.

Let me set it up for you. So there I was, standing in a pew at church and holding a cup filled with grape juice in my hand. I'm staring at it unsure of whether or not I should do what I need to do. Suddenly God speaks to my heart. "Let go" he says. Let go? Really? I don't think so. "Let go", he repeats. No I say again. I shouldn't have to. All my life I've always been forced to let go of my anger, when other people get to hold onto theirs. I deserve to have some don't I? God speaks to my heart again. "You want to take communion right? Then let it go." I fight. I make my case. I give in to God, because in the end he's right. I take the bread, I take the cup. I stand and I think about the people who have hurt me most. I feel my anger, my hatred, the pain they caused me to melt away. In the end its gone. The weight on my heart, the sick feeling, the shadow, its all gone. I think and I know what the right thing to do is. A sort of confrontation and tell them, apologize for my hatred, for my anger towards them and make peace...

That was the beginning of a series of events of the past week. During this past week and even some before this week the Lord spoke to my heart about the hatred, the anger I held and told me to get rid of it. I refused until faced with the remembrance of my saviors sacrifice. I thought it unfair, but is it? I've had to read the Gospels recently for my New Testament class and one of the things that stuck out to me is when says "Love your enemies". Love my enemies? What? Sure I can say it, I've prayed for my enemies but can I put it into practice? Can I love them? of course not. Its impossible right? Well apparently it is. At least with God. It seems a lot of the lessons in my NT class and chapel anymore have been focused on compassion. God was yet again talking to me. You know the nudging of the shoulder, telling me to listen. So I did and let me tell you I did not like it. Who wants to forgive their enemies? I certainly don't, especially two people like them. But I knew the hatred and anger was something I didn't want but I held onto it for dear life for some reason. I cannot begin to tell you though how it feels to be freed from it. My heart felt lighter after that moment, when I gave it all to God and I said "Take it from me" and I took communion. I know I still need to talk to these people and it'll be hard but it is what I have to do. So I guess what I'm saying here is this: Let it go. Because there is a even more wonderful feeling than the hate and anger waiting. Give it to God. He'll give you rest. I'm not saying it'll be something that happens overnight of course. God had a plan and he'd been working in my heart. It won't be instant. But let God work on you and in your life.

Why and Where: Faith and Fear

And it happened as if a voice spoke to him. “Why are you sleeping? Could you not stay awake with me for a bit longer?” His realization dawned and he awoke. This here is how I describe how I met something, which is powerful and directly from God’s lips himself! It was when Jesus and his disciples were on the boat at sea and the storm came upon them. One of them ran down and found Jesus sleeping and asked him “do you not care if we drown?” To which Jesus’ almost rebuttal was going to the storm and rebuking it when he said “Quiet! Be still!” and instantly it was calm. Jesus then turned and asked them “Why are you afraid? Where is your faith?” WHY ARE YOU AFRAID? WHERE IS YOUR FAITH? When I heard this I think of when I’ve gone to God and asked him why something was happening in my family or in my life. I remember one time when everything, in a week’s time that could go wrong did. So I asked him why. His rebuttal: It is my will. Then when something I was completely not prepared for came I asked him why again (you’d think I’d stop asking and getting my butt handed to me but no). So he responded with something else. “It is my will, you know that and now I will have you believe it.” Everything got better. I let God take the reigns. The message to me: I cannot manipulate, control or make every situation work out for me and I have no control. For it is not my will but God’s and I also learned my fear is that I do not know God’s plan so I must go, walk in faith unprepared for what will come but when it comes I will react to the situation.

A special thank you to =phatpuppy for allowing me to use the picture shown above from her wonderful gallery here: http://phatpuppy.deviantart.com/art/Calm-the-Storm-126751117