Spiritual Life Skills for Any WorkplaceНамуна

This past summer I was troubled by the difficulty I was having—trying to love a certain person for whom I couldn’t stir up much empathy. He has inflicted great pain on someone I love through his uncontrollable fits of rage, and reflecting on what he’d put my friend through, I could find little more than anger toward him in my heart.

The Lord brought to mind the story of how David of the Bible dealt with Saul, whose bitterness had made the younger man the target of his ire and threatened his life. When David had a chance for revenge, to ambush an unsuspecting Saul, he didn’t take it. Instead, he recommitted himself to working out the problem. In this passage, he’d just told Saul about his decision not to finish him:

Saul said, “Can this be the voice of my son David?” and he wept in loud sobs. “You’re the one in the right, not me,” he continued. “You heaped good on me; I’ve dumped evil on you. And now you’ve done it again—treated me generously” (1 Samuel 24:16-17 MSG).

I saw that I needed to be more like David, who set his pursuer free. David extended generosity and respect to the man who saw him as an antagonist. Only this kind of generous love can overcome a greedy, jealous, and hurting heart. Only this kind of generous forgiveness can heal a relationship…and heal a soul.

Generous love originates in our generous God. He is always giving. He gives grace, mercy and kindness when we certainly don’t deserve it. Most of all, though, He gives His love when we’re hard to love—a love that calms our troubled hearts, soothes our stressed spirits, and infuses a supernatural peace in our minds.

Do you sometimes find yourself obsessing about an injury at the hands of an unjust person who’s robbed you of joy? If so, the first step is simply to receive God’s love in your own heart and accept the shepherding care of Jesus, the lover of your soul. Letting Christ care for your soul with His indiscriminate, intimate, and always available abundance of love will begin to transform the way you look at that other person. It will soften the hardness in your heart. Jesus’ example teaches us how to see our perceived enemies the way God sees them—worthy of respect and love and sympathy. He said,

I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You’ll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we’re at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind (Luke 6:35-36 MSG).

When your “enemies” are at their most vulnerable, that’s when you, as an effective spiritual leader, must choose not to take advantage of their vulnerability. Instead, love them in a way that draws them to the way of Jesus Christ.