I was in a meeting once when someone brought something up that I had confided in only one other person in the room … and it wasn’t that person who brought it up. So, I never trusted that person completely again. Now, what was said was absolutely no big deal and didn’t cause any hurt feelings or harm, but it was the fact that I’d confided in one person and that person relayed the message without my consent, which caused a chain of reactions I wasn’t ready to deal with. David’s words today in verses 11-16 reminded me of situations such as these. Have you ever been bamboozled by a loved one? It looks like David is feeling that way. He says he has loved his enemies in their most desperate times, yet they just stabbed him in the back for no good reason. My example about a co-worker wasn’t the greatest example, but it did remind me that loving on people often is done with an element of trust. It’s sort of an unspoken trust, however. We have a natural tendency to expect niceties from others in return for doing nice things for them. But David points out that that’s not always how the world works, and to truly love someone requires us to bestow that love expecting nothing in return … and to continue loving, even when we don’t receive that love back, or worse, that love is rejected and returned with hateful acts.
Sum it up:
Lord, I need your help with those who hate me.
I need You to turn them away from harming me.
Sometimes I don’t understand why those I have loved
Hate me with their whole hearts.
Still, I won’t let them keep me from loving You.
I won’t let them keep me from seeing me
Loving You.
Writing prompt: stabbed in the back
We’ve all been stabbed in the back by a loved one at some point in our lives. Write about a time a back-stabbing hurt even more than usual.
jugglingfire.com 