E is for Enemy.

Notice I didn't title this "The Enemy."  Certainly, as Christians we have *the* enemy, but there are other kinds of enemies.

• Satan - the enemy of all of God's people. 
• Military enemies - A country or people who are against "us" as a nation or people.
• Frenemies - People who pretend to our faces to be our friend, but in reality are against us.
• Enemies who are against us because one might believe differently than they.

Webster's 1828 says this about enemies.
EN'EMY, noun [Latin inimicus.]
1. A foe; an adversary. A private enemy is one who hates another and wishes him injury, or attempts to do him injury to gratify his own malice or ill will. A public enemy or foe, is one who belongs to a nation or party, at war with another.
3. In theology, and by way of eminence, the enemy is the Devil; the archfiend.

It's interesting to know that frenemy is a very new *official* word.  There have been frenemies since the beginning of time.  One might even consider the serpent in the Garden of Eden to have been a frenemy.  Certainly, Delilah was no friend of Samson.  Job's "friends" weren't very friendly.  The saying, "with friends like these..." doesn't even need to be completed for you to know what I'm talking about.

In Luke 6, we're told "²⁷ “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you."  Seriously?  That is whack.  But I've done it.  And I'll keep doing it.  It isn't easy, but I pray for the soul of an abuser.  I don't spend time with that person, but I continue to pray for them from time to time.  As I was typing this, I realized I actually found it easier to pray for the non-Christian who misused me terribly for many years than to pray for a couple of Christians (I can't even tell you how much I wanted to put quotes around Christian, but I realized I'm sometimes the kind of Christian who deserves quotation marks.  Funny how you have one idea when you plan a post and something completely different comes out of it.) who maybe offended me far less.

What a mess we are.

So keep loving people.  Try to not hurt people.  Pray for all people.


My other E posts:
Enthusiasm


Read more Blogging Through the Alphabet posts here.