praying for your enemies

If you wish to learn the love of God, you have to begin by praying for your enemies. That’s not as easy as it may sound. Prayers for people entail wanting the best for them; and that’s far from easy if it has to do with a fellow student who speaks ill of you, a girl who finds someone else more attractive than you, a “friend” who gets you to do all those awkward little chores for him, or a colleague who’s trying his best to get your job. But each time you pray, really pray, for your enemies, you’ll notice that your heart is being made new. Within your prayer, you quickly discover that your enemies are in fact your fellow human beings loved by God just as much as yourself. The result is that the walls you’ve thrown up between “him and me,” “us and them,” “ours and theirs” disappear. Your heart grows deeper and broader and opens up more and more to all the human beings with whom God has peopled the earth.

I find it difficult to conceive of a more concrete way to love than by praying for one’s enemies. It makes you conscious of the hard fact that, in God’s eyes, you’re no more and no less worthy of being loved than any other person, and it creates an awareness of profound solidarity with all other human beings. It creates in you a world-embracing compassion and provides you in increasing measure with a heart free of the compulsive urge to coercion and violence. And you’ll be delighted to discover that you can no longer remain angry with people for whom you’ve really and truly prayed. You will find that you start speaking differently to them or about them, and that you’re actually willing to do well to those who’ve offended you in some way.



Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing: Living A Prayerful Life, Compiled & Edited by Wendy Wilson Greer. 1999. p. 154, 155.  Originally quoted in Letters to Marc about Jesus. 1988.