Oh...I'll PRAY for you alright!!!

But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. ²⁸ Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you.

Luke 6:27-28 

Ever been hurt by someone?  Ever had someone treat you like something they stepped in whilst wandering through a cow pasture?  Ever had someone stab you in the back?  Me too!

Ever stub your toe in the dark?  Did you get angry and try to destroy the thing upon which you stubbed your toe? When we are hurt, our natural response is to lash out and hurt whatever hurt us.  When someone hurts us, the only prayers we want to offer are prayers that God will rain down vengeance upon them.

But wouldn't that simply escalate the situation?  And what good comes out of escalating a bad situation?  NONE!  Jesus had a different way of thinking which goes against the grain of our natural responses most times.  Jesus teaches us to DE-Escalate situations by doing the unexpected.

I'm not about to say that it's easy to do, and I won't lie and say that I no longer struggle with this, but I'm learning.  Life here slurps swamp water at times!  But that doesn't mean we have to wallow in it either.  In John 10:10 we read "The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life."  Did you catch that?  The thief represents everything that happens to us that takes our focus off of Christ!  If we allow it, the thief will destroy our lives, our relationships, everything!  BUT Christ came so that we can have a much better life because we remember whose we are!