Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Enemy Love.

12:44 AM by Christi Bowman

I am finding that living into what I believe is actually quite difficult. What I believe in my spirit is at times an anathema to my flesh and so my flesh becomes a heavy burden. My flesh is constantly rationalizing and if I am not careful I tend to get sucked in by its arguments because they are the most cerebral.

God is not interested in appealing to my logic; He continually asks me to step out in faith so that I may grow. Stepping out in faith is not rational. When I begin to question the prudent nature of what God is asking me to do then I know that I am letting my flesh gain ground and if I keep listening to it I will miss out on a blessing and a growth spurt.

God is teaching me about enemy love. Enemy love is HARD. It is not rational. I have come to the conclusion that when God tells me to love my enemy He is actually telling me to treat them better than I would my friend. My flesh finds this insulting.

In my last post I wrote about being profoundly hurt by a family I had tried my hardest to love well. Despite loving them the best I knew how I was told that my efforts were not good enough and I was rejected via an email. In order to not allow my heart to turn bitter toward this family I had to go to them. My flesh abhorred this idea but despite its protests I went. We were able to talk for a while and I found out why my efforts to love were not good enough. In their opinion I lacked intentionality.

I was glad the conversation was constructive but as I thought more and more about the discussion I was doubtful as to how long the situation would remain as such. I have three children at home and the youngest two are under five; I home school my oldest. I also suffer from a severe case of introversion. As a whole I am seriously questioning how I can be more intentional; my flesh thinks me foolish for even considering it.

I do not call my friends, invite them over, or bring them anything during the week. If they ask to come over I will sometimes oblige, but they have their own transportation. Because I home school we also do not make house calls during the week.

I have considered the a fore mentioned family a part of my network of friends in the past, and I have given to them as I would anyone else (even more so at times,) but that has not been good enough. My flesh would have me believe that there is nothing else I can do for them and it is good enough for me to love them from a distance by intentionally not letting bitterness towards them creep into my heart; but that will, as I said earlier, do nothing to keep the situation positive as I have behaved like this in the past and have only been successful in angering them.

My flesh presents to me the easy way out: "You have done all that you can do" it says, but the Spirit brings to my recollection Luke 6. What good is it to love those who love you instead do good to your enemies.

It is not enough to love your enemies as you would your friends...if it were than your enemies would be your friends...to love your enemies is to love in a completely different way...a better way than how you are accustomed to loving.

Making a concentrated effort to love your enemy better than you normally love hardly seems fair to those you call friends; it is most definitely irrational and downright impossible from a human perspective. I do not know how to love any better on my own than how I am accustom to loving.

There is a war going on between my spirit and my flesh. My flesh says no and provides me with all the reasoning I need to feel good about that decision, but the Spirit reminds me that if I want to be transformed into the likeness of Christ than I must take up my cross and follow after Him, and He brings to mind ideas that make that possible. These ideas go beyond anything I would spontaneously do for those I love and who love me in return. My flesh uses my acknowledgment of this to inform me that if I am to love my enemy in a better way than my friend than I am not a worthy friend. The Spirit tells me that this is what it means to participate in enemy love and through it I may learn to be a better friend, but that will, in the future, only set the bar higher for enemy love.

"Come unto Me." When you hear those words you will know that something must happen in you before you can come. The Holy Spirit will show you what you have to do, anything at all that will put the axe at the root of the thing which is preventing you from getting through. You will never get further until you are willing to do that one thing. The Holy Spirit will locate the one impregnable thing in you, but He cannot budge it unless you are willing to let Him.
~Oswald Chambers~

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