Daily Power #181

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27–28)

Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies. I don’t know about you, but that is one of the most difficult of his commands for me to obey. Cursing our enemies would be natural; praying for them is supernatural.

This never felt truer than years ago when our family discovered that a man I’ll call Max had molested my little sister. Lisa was in the sixth grade when this very sick man groomed her along with other young girls before he robbed them of their innocence. Any type of abuse is horrible and heartbreaking. What Max did to these precious young girls is still gut-wrenching to think about.

To be honest, I would rather have beaten Max than prayed for him. But because our family took God’s Word seriously, we knew we would want to work toward forgiving him. It wouldn’t be easy. It would take a lot of time and faith. And for me, it would start with prayer.

At first, all I could pray was, “God do something to Max.” As you can tell, my prayer was very open ended. Secretly I hoped God would “do something” to punish him for his sins. Over time, my prayers progressed. I managed to barely utter the words, “Bless him.”

Through months of personal searching and seeking God, our family made the faith decision to forgive this man for the unthinkable—just as Christ had forgiven us.

Although for a while I didn’t know if our prayers had any impact on Max, they did on us. And I learned that our prayers for others may or may not change them. But they will always change us.

Power Lift

God, give me the strength to forgive those who have hurt me the deepest.