Dear Lord help me not to hate.
Dear Lord, teach me not to hate. Teach me not to indulge the feeling that rises in my guts and sticks in the back of my throat; so swift and insidious that it feels like instinct. It feels like the first response of my heart, when I know that you have etched upon my soul a better way to be; you who knitted my inner-most parts together and knows me inside and out. Remind me of who I am and what you intended me to be. I was never designed to hate.
I’m broken-hearted, hollow with sadness and grief, and rage stirs silently in my belly, like a sleeping snake. Anger feels justified; it’s a righteous balm that I lather on, which feels soothing at first, and it’s only after I’m soaked in it that I realise it’s burning me. The hate doesn’t take away the heartbreak, it only has the power to solidify it into bitterness. If I stay like this for too long it will harden and become a concrete barrier, impossible to penetrate. I know this, but right now I’m struggling to wash it off.
Anger when it is accompanied by its close cousin hate, is so powerful and so very beguiling. Like a delicious smelling dish, they’re so easy to gorge upon and before you realise what you’re doing, you’ve swallowed them whole. They sit in the stomach and refuse to be digested; they provide no nourishment, no genuine satisfaction, no true satiation. And, like a poisonous dish that has hastily been consumed, anger and hate feel like a foreign body to my insides. Why else would I feel so wretched, God? Why else would I feel so sick inside? I was not designed to feel this way.
Show me a new way. Teach me your way. Take my hand and lead me out of this place of despair and guide me towards hope. Smooth the soothing balm of peace and acceptance upon my heart. Guard my life and rescue me, for you are my refuge. May integrity and uprightness protect me because my hope Lord is in you.
I know now why you told us to pray for our enemies. I can’t continue to hate when I’ve brought them before you. On my knees in prayer, I give my hate to you as an offering and I ask you to do what I cannot; just as Jesus did upon the cross, when he beseeched you, “forgive them Father, for they do not know what they do,” I also say forgive them, because until I can do the same, all I can do is offer it to you. In your Holy name, I pray.
Amen.
I’m broken-hearted, hollow with sadness and grief, and rage stirs silently in my belly, like a sleeping snake. Anger feels justified; it’s a righteous balm that I lather on, which feels soothing at first, and it’s only after I’m soaked in it that I realise it’s burning me. The hate doesn’t take away the heartbreak, it only has the power to solidify it into bitterness. If I stay like this for too long it will harden and become a concrete barrier, impossible to penetrate. I know this, but right now I’m struggling to wash it off.
Anger when it is accompanied by its close cousin hate, is so powerful and so very beguiling. Like a delicious smelling dish, they’re so easy to gorge upon and before you realise what you’re doing, you’ve swallowed them whole. They sit in the stomach and refuse to be digested; they provide no nourishment, no genuine satisfaction, no true satiation. And, like a poisonous dish that has hastily been consumed, anger and hate feel like a foreign body to my insides. Why else would I feel so wretched, God? Why else would I feel so sick inside? I was not designed to feel this way.
Show me a new way. Teach me your way. Take my hand and lead me out of this place of despair and guide me towards hope. Smooth the soothing balm of peace and acceptance upon my heart. Guard my life and rescue me, for you are my refuge. May integrity and uprightness protect me because my hope Lord is in you.
I know now why you told us to pray for our enemies. I can’t continue to hate when I’ve brought them before you. On my knees in prayer, I give my hate to you as an offering and I ask you to do what I cannot; just as Jesus did upon the cross, when he beseeched you, “forgive them Father, for they do not know what they do,” I also say forgive them, because until I can do the same, all I can do is offer it to you. In your Holy name, I pray.
Amen.
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