Loving the Unlovely

"It is said, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Well I say, keep everyone as close as possible to you because you don’t know who is your friend or your enemy. Keep the people below you even closer if that’s possible. Even if they have to be inside you."

Ah, the wise words of Dwight K. Schrute.

Do you have any enemies? I really have begun to ponder this question after reading the above quote.

What a wise thing actually. Keep your enemies closer than your friends? I wonder if we truly have any enemies and if we do how can we keep them closer than our friends? I think that Jesus modeled it really well for us. The Message quotes Jesus in Matthew 5:43-47 stating:

43-47"You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that."

"Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst...This is what God does. He gives his best..."

How many times do I allow others to bring out the worst in me? So often. Everyday I am challenged with this. Even if it is my own family, I am still falling to what Satan wants. How easy it is to "love the lovable!" Do you have someone in your life right now that is unlovable?

I remember the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college. I was a camp counselor. I was given a cabin and each week we would receive a new set of campers. The week ahead of me was the first week that the campers would spend the entire week with us. So this was training ground for me. I was in charge of 10 little 1st grade girls. I remember meeting the girls that Sunday, excited to challenge them and pray with them and get to know them more. I could see quickly that one little girl wasn't going to be so easy to get to know. She had a hard look in her eyes. I was so broken that day for her. How could a little 7 year old girl be so hardened already? I learned later what her home life was like and it helped to give me better perspective. As my week went on I began stressing that we weren't going to mesh. I tried so hard but she had a strong will and would run off constantly. After several exhausting days I went to the camp director and sought his help. I have not forgot his words to me.

"Maria, sometimes God calls us to love the unlovely. Right now she is unlovely. He has called you to love her."

I was disappointed that he wasn't going to move her to another cabin or maybe send her home. I had to stick with it. I had to stick with her. I began praying that the Lord would help me to love her. Amazingly, I began to see good things in her and tried to call them out in her. The Lord began to soften her. By the end of the week she was smiling more than she had all week and she even gave me a hug before she went home. I ran into her later that summer and you could physically see a difference in her face. It was the Lord changing her.

That situation has challenged me and changed me in more ways than I can think. My perspective changes when I am forced to look hard at people that I don't feel like loving. I wonder what the Lord sees in them sometimes. I see so many "unlovable" people in my life. I feel the Lord challenging me, "So how are you going to love them?" I don't want to be a "run-of-the-mill sinner." I want to look differently. Who knows, I may be unlovable to someone else.