Is It Really Possible to Love Our Enemies

The talk I gave at church on 9.26.21

The subject for my talk, I was given, was on the scripture found in Matthew 5:43-44 that says. . . “Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.”

I’m sorry, what do we have to do? I am sure up in Heaven we all thought this was going to be an easy task and more of a no brainer commandment. Of course we love each other! But down here? What a hard topic to try to teach people how to do because when it comes down to it, I can yell from the mountain tops to just forget about it and stop it, but that isn’t a guarantee you will love them. People do some really terrible things, and that is the reality of it. I know personally I have had people “wrong” me. I am confident I have wronged people in my life. I am sure everyone in this room, even down to primary age children, had someone be mean to us. I mean I had my enemies in the 3rd grade especially being a girl. And I am supposed to love them? How can I even begin to love them?

Creating Our Own Enemies

Now let me stop right there. While reading these well known verses I began to think, well who are my enemies? Who has persecuted me? Who hates me? I think I can actually answer these questions for everyone. Who has been at war with us since the beginning, trying to destroy us? Can we please not forget that the real enemy is Satan. Can we honestly get over our easily offended selves and realize Satan is trying to rile us up so we can hold onto our anger and start creating our own enemies in our day to day life. Of course there are the terrible circumstances where a spouse cheats, identity fraud, a life is taken by someone else’s hands, etc. But I am starting on a smaller scale, situations we face sometimes daily.
The enemy is not the person who cuts you off in traffic, or your aunt who always embarasses you, or your boss who has it out for you. I won’t lie, one of my biggest pet peeves is when someone pulls out in front of me while driving and takes their sweet time accelerating to hit the speed limit, or worse! end up going below the speed limit. But I let it go. The person driving probably doesn’t even know what they did so why am I going to let that ruin my day and fill me with anger which ultimately drives the spirit away? Here is another example of how we can create our own enemy. I hope I am not the only one guilty of this, but I used to be terrible, absolutely terrible about comparing myself to others. So and so has so many talents, or so and so just always has so much energy to do all these wonderful things, man they can make anyone laugh, everyone loves to be around them. The list continues but then what comes with comparison? Envy. Me being jealous of so and so made me feel hatred towards them and made me want to try and be better than them. TO prove I am the best? the best at what? Satan was here trying to put in my head that I needed to find my worth in being better than others, proving myself if you would. they were the enemy because I couldn’t be happy till they were defeated. Come on people, I hope we are starting to see how clever Satan is by turning our attention away from him to focus on petty things like, who has the best testimony or who can make the best cornbread.
Now here is a more modern day example if you will, Covid. The vaccine. Masks. Why are we comparing, assuming, judging people if they did or did not get it or wear it? Why are we pointing the finger at each other, excluding our brothers and sisters, just because of different view points? Wow, Satan is so clever at slowly dividing good people from good people. We are making enemies all around us. The enemy is not me for either complying or not, but it is the greater evil at play here. But, wow. Heavenly Father is still hundreds of steps ahead of all of this. How long ago was this verse given to us? We cannot go around loving our neighbor when secretly we are trying to see which side of the fence they are on.
Satan wants us to create these enemies in our lives. When we hold onto grudges, gossip, make quick judgements or assumptions, exclude others, Satan has turned our feelings of hatred, envy, and anger into enemies we shouldn’t have to face in the first place. When God asked us to love our enemies, bless those that curse you, do good to them that hate you, God wanted us to put the spirit of contention and anger aside and just love them for the Child of God that they are. Love the people who have or haven’t done something to us. Which now takes me back to one of my earlier questions: How can I even begin to love them in the first place?

How to Love Our Enemies

And honestly I don’t think that you can even begin to love them without first forgiving them. In my opinion the first step is to forgive. Forgiveness is one of the greatest acts of love. Jesus set the perfect example of love, by dying for each of our sins so that we could be forgiven. But Sumiko, you don’t understand, how could I forgive someone for doing this to me? And you are right, I don’t understand especially when it comes to the hurt they caused you at the moment of the action and for everyday afterwards. I have had a lot of turmoil when I began the forgiveness process. Thoughts of, If I forgive this, isn’t that me saying that what happened doesn’t matter. Is forgiveness, me betraying my own feelings. Is it me saying that I wasn’t really hurt? That I only suffered hurt one day, not everyday because of it? Then we almost try to hold onto not forgiving them because that is the one thing we can hold over them so that they know what they did was not okay, that it is serious, that we will never forget.
I am here to say that forgiveness is not forgetting about it. Because some things you will never forget, especially the lessons you have learned from those experiences. What I am saying is that forgiveness is not holding whatever they did against that person. That when you do something that triggers a memory of what they have done, you are telling yourself that you have forgiven them for the action and continue to forgive them for each moment they have had an impact on your life. Forgiveness is our cooperation with God. There is a verse in proverbs that reads, “love covereth all sins.” When we absolutely cannot love, we can rely on God’s love, that is perfect, that truly covers all of our sins. Forgiveness is showing God that we are willing to forgive, to move on, we just need some help.

How I Learned to Love Through Forgiveness

I am amazed once again at the bishopric’s prompting to invite me to speak on this topic today. At first I didn’t think anyone had really wronged me. So I am sitting here thinking of actually quite a few instances where I had a terrible boss and someone abused their power in the workplace, or Harrison and I were victims of a scam, and you know some of these bigger moments. Then Harrison asked about my dad. You know, I hadn’t realized this till I started preparing this talk, but I have forgiven my dad. I want to share this experience with you, in hopes you realize forgiveness isn’t a one and done. Loving people is hard. It isn’t forgive and forget. And it certainly isn’t an overnight process for certain things.
My dad growing up was an alcoholic. The longest stretch of sobriety was probably 3 years, we think. Boy did he teach me to forgive and trust then start all over again at square one. One day he started drinking again and went so far as to lock himself in our cellar and take his own life. Brothers and sisters, I have been angry for 6 years because of this. Of course I wasn’t angry in every moment of my life, but just this last year I came to realize something just wasn’t right. Now I think, like me, a lot of us are going around with a childish way of looking at forgiveness. Remember when we were little a sibling or a friend would smack us. We would rush over to find mom, the great judge, to make our friend say they were sorry. Mom would make our friend say sorry then make us say it’s okay and everything would be right with the world. I hope we stop going throughout our lives waiting to forgive someone once the great judge comes over and tells both parties I was right, they were wrong, and now say you’re sorry. Sometimes you will never get a, “I’m sorry,” and you will have to be the better person.
I think this whole time I was waiting for my dad to say he was sorry. Sorry for leaving our family. sorry for missing my wedding. for missing his grandkids. for missing me growing up. For giving my kids a different grandpa to love.Each milestone I had to forgive again and I realized that was okay because forgiveness is a decision and a process. New moments were triggering hidden anger that I needed to accept and know it was his mistake, not mine and someday we will enjoy all of this together. I needed to forgive his broken self to fix how he broke me. His salvation wasn’t dependent on me forgiving him, but my salvation was. When we refuse to let go of what other people’s mistakes have done to our lives, we are keeping ourselves from our greatest potential, not them. In Doctrine and Covenants section 105 verse 40 it reads, “And make proposals for peace unto those who have smitten you, according to the voice of the spirit which is in you, and all things shall work together for your good.” It doesn’t say that everything will be good that happens to you, but that actually in those moments of betrayal, loss, heartache, on the other side is good. Once we learn our lessons, gain some perspective, we become better. These experiences make our life good. The Lord has a detailed plan for each one of us, down to every single person who cuts us off in traffic to those leaving us with more questions than answers. The Lord has put these trials in our lives to make us better, to learn how God loves us. When we choose to love those who wronged us, to propose peace, We are gaining but a small glimpse into the enormous amount of love our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ has for us. They have loved me through all my mistakes great and small, who am I to withhold my love from someone who sins differently than I do?

Please don’t take 6 years to forgive someone. It isn’t healthy. I would like to encourage anyone who is holding a grudge, comparing themselves, gossiping, judging or assuming other people’s intentions to follow this two word sermon.Stop it! Satan would love to have us live in our anger, hatred, and envy towards others because waiting for us on the other side of these emotions is peace and joy. Satan is helping us make enemies in our daily lives to keep us from our own salvation. I know I haven’t had the worst of it, there are many other ways people can hurt you, that I simply cannot comprehend or begin to understand. However, I do know that when we choose to love, to give them the benefit of the doubt if you will, we will come to understand God’s love for them and even more so for us. And I promise, God’s love heals.