Love thine enemy

When Alli was in grade 2, she had a teacher that I didn't like very much. I'm not going to say why I found her unlikeable. There were reasons, you know. But I'm not going to go into it - it'll just sound like I'm trying to justify my sin of being uncharitable. Suffice it to say she wasn't one of my favourite people.

Anyways, at the beginning of that school year the headmaster asked for parent volunteers to become prayer warriors for the teaching staff. If you were willing, they would "assign" you to a teacher to pray over for the year.

My first thought was, "Great! I'd love to do that!"

My second (horrified) thought was, "But what if they give me Miss I-Don't-Like-Her to pray for???"

Then my third (reluctant) thought was, "I guess if I'm unwilling to pray for her, then she is the one I should be praying for."

Gulp.

So I didn't volunteer to be a prayer warrior; instead I began praying on my own for the teacher I didn't like. It was nothing less than the prompting of the Holy Spirit that caused me to do so. In the beginning I didn't exactly pray enthusiastically for her...but I didn't do so begrudgingly either. It was somewhere in between I guess. I prayed rather self-consciously at first, with the feeling that my prayers were somewhat hypocritical. I still felt kinda ambivalent towards her and I figured God could see that in my heart.

It was a good lesson for me. I'd like to say that we ended up becoming bestest friends, but the reality is that by the end of the school year...I still didn't care for her all that much. BUT. I discovered that I didn't have to have the warm fuzzies for somebody in order to intercede on their behalf. And I found that over time I no longer felt that my prayers were hypocritical. Praying for someone that I don't like all that much is not much different than praying for someone I love - neither, in their natural sinful state, deserves God's merciful eye turned toward them...yet Jesus died for both. And I discovered this as well: liking her personally was not a prerequisite for wanting God to bestow his gifts on her. I thought at first I might be tempted to pray that God change those things about her that I didn’t like (ok, I’m not always this shallow), but I found that over time I prayed that He would work on MY heart – to be more patient and compassionate and to overcome my uglier feelings for her.

I don't know what made me think of this, but I just thought I would share it.