Today’s scripture: Matthew 5:43-48 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (Robin Herman – Lucky Dog Retreat Rescue):
The scripture selection for this assignment centered around the “love your neighbor” theme. This is one of the hardest concepts for me to grasp.
I remember a while ago, I had a difficult time trying to wrap my head around this passage because of what was happening around me. It was one of those weeks where I was trying to make some sense of God’s desire for me to forgive. I sat with this for hours just trying to comprehend this, much less defend it or write inspiring words about it.
I pull dogs out of shelters and get them homes. Most of our rescues have been from our local shelters, and I thought that these shelters were pretty bad places for dogs. Through this process, I’ve learned of countless small county shelters that are just little buildings stuck out in fields across America. In these shelters, they kill all the dogs in the shelter once a week. Most of the dogs are owner surrenders and a significant percentage of them are puppies. Eight-week-old puppies — whole litters of them. People just drop off litters of puppies. I cannot begin to put into words how I feel about these people.
There are wonderful people trying to save these dogs. They go into the shelter and take pictures of the dogs, write a little bio and then send an email to everyone they can. They transport them to the closest big city for other people to pick up and take elsewhere. There is a huge underground of wonderful people working, driving, and begging people to get the dogs out before the shelter’s “kill” day.
We got four more dogs from one of these shelters, three 10-week-old puppies and a two-year-old beagle. As I was sitting there watching the puppies play, chase each other, roll over and all around each other, I couldn’t stop thinking about the two other litters of puppies that we couldn’t take, the other beagle — and all the rest. And I couldn’t stop thinking about what evil lies in the hearts of the people who dumped them.
So back to my dilemma. I was trying to reconcile what God was saying and how I felt. What good will loving them do? How will that save another puppy? How will that fix this?
It won’t — but neither will hating them. All I can come up with is that it’s not about them. It’s about me, about me being a better person. Hating them and being angry and disgusted won’t save a single life. Actually, if I let it get to me enough, it could cost lives.
I realized that the best I can do is give them to God and concentrate on the lives we were able to save because of the wonderful people who helped them. I hope to be able to pray for my enemies and be truly empathetic with the people who don’t know the love and joy of a dog. For now, I’m just going to ignore them.
Love my enemy? Seems like a stretch — especially when circumstances make it so hard — but it’s good to have goals. . .
Thought for the day: Who is the “enemy” I’ve found impossible to love? What is one small step I can take in that direction?
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.