Messiness in Our Relationships ~ Chris Keim

Staff, March 9, 2021

"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them." ~Luke 8:32

Luke 6:32 is one of those bible verses that always catches me by surprise every time I hear it.  It makes me a little uncomfortable.  I think about the people I meet, or know or those I am related to that see the world from a completely different perspective than I do.  I tend to feel a little hot under the collar when I hear their points of view.  Jesus is asking us to evaluate how we handle those relationships. Casual or familial, easy or difficult, He calls us to love them.

I find myself, at times asking; how can I love them when they infuriate me??!  The prayer attributed to St. Francis or as they call it at Hephatha, the Peace Prayer, is a prayer that I have found to be instructive for this very situation. I will write it below for meditation.

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is discord, union;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

To be understood, as to understand;

To be loved, as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life”

Amen.