Love your Enemy as Yourself

We know the Scriptures “love your enemy” and “love your neighbor as yourself”. Think also how often we’ve heard “you are your own worst enemy”. So who is the first enemy to love? Is this the enemy written about in Romans 7? Or is “enemy” the wrong term to describe the corrupted form of our human nature called self that confuses us and makes it hard to love the enemies around us. It could even make us see friends as enemies and enemies as friends. We are to hate evil and even battle against it but today’s use of the term enemy in our culture has confused us from the depths of the real issue.

We have learned to come together as Pilot and Herod in Luke 23:12 That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies. We often rally around what we are against which depends on fear, hatred, and suspicion.

No wonder we call evil good and good evil when we rely on our own wisdom. Isaiah 5:20

Worry

A result from neglecting spiritual disciplines leading to an undisciplined heart. Worry leads to moodiness which is a breakdown of affection. Psalm 55:22

Enemy Any Mo?

What is needed is not pejorative labeling but loving counsel. Counsel to be kind to myself so I won't have to wait for kindness from others. I've seen the enemy and it's no longer me. Kiss good-bye polar extremes. Ecclesiastes 7:13-18

Myopic to Kaleidoscopic

Able to see and enjoy the mysterious unfolding of beauty in front and inside of me. Enlightened by new patterns of thought forming through mirrors of experientially timely words, timing becomes more important than time. Proverbs 25:11 An awareness grows of being empowered into freedom from the use of brute force that is replaced by the strength of influential gentleness. From Cyclops to single-eyed focus, I’m learning to live without the monstrous blind spots created by cultural myths that darken truth, its expression, and its joy. Matthew 6:22,23

I gradually move out of the reflective suffering of the status quo that counsels me not to commit because of the wasted energy of worrying about what people think.  

My overdeveloped analytical abilities and underdeveloped will no longer have power to keep me from the fresh commitments I can now make to the One who has the combination unlocking my heart and mind.

I unlearn the commitments that have defined me which are unstated and usually unrecognized.  

Slowly, the painfully harsh judgements against my emotions are being lifted. I can now listen for and interpret who I am through my emotions as they create the background music for my new life and its beauty. 1 Corinthians 14:15

Heal Yourself?

Healing comes from tenderness and rest. We often resort to extreme self-denial instead because of the feelings produced of being in control. The most common yet usually unrecognized form of this is over-analysis or “I have to figure out____”. This kills the mind’s freedom to experience the benefits from thinking(Isaiah 46:8) and begins the controlled process of now thinking about what one is thinking, i.e. becoming analytical.

This substitute form of suffering is from an over-developed mind and under-developed will.

The mind can generate more pain or create higher expectations(Proverbs 13:12) than the pain caused by the wound, thus an ironic form of relief is found.

True rest in its final step is a free mind, not an open one. A free mind receives what is best(Philippians 1:9-11) and is free from what isn’t. An open mind just adds more and more books to the mental shelf that is already overloaded. It’s strange how an overloaded mental shelf feels like a great substitute for true grace.