Excerpt from How and Why to Pray for your Enemies

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From Dr. Peebles

Sun 05 Feb 2012

Excerpt from How and Why to Pray for your Enemies

Dr. Peebles through Summer Bacon

So, how and why to pray for your enemies? Well goodness gracious, as you are very much aware, we would not ever call anyone an enemy, but in this particular case, in understanding the journey to the heart, let us presume for a moment here that you have enemies, i.e, those that you feel are your adversaries in life, those who are in attack of you, those who want to disarm you, those who would like, if you will, to defame your character, those who would like to steal your money, those who would like to cut you off at the knees, those who would like to take your children from you, those in the other realms even, such as daddy dearly departed who still haunts you in the night.

All of those in your life: the teacher who misunderstood what you were saying and sent you to the corner, the writer who wrote obscene words on the wall about you and your boyfriend. So many enemies, and so little time upon the Planet Earth to worry about it, because you're here very temporarily. However, we want for you to understand praying for your enemies can truly release you from the confines of the very same. In other words, do you want your enemy to be your captor, or do you want very much to be released from the very same, to not feel your adversary at work in your life, to not feel down hearted, to not feel fear certainly during times of war upon your Planet Earth, to not fear and to feel the discouragement that comes with those who are trying to cut you down in your work, in your play, in your understandings of religion, spirituality, science? It doesn't matter; always in every single solitary arena there are adversaries, always, my dear friends.

And this is not necessarily, shall we say in terms of human understanding, a bad thing. Instead it becomes the fertile soil when you find the richness within your heart to stop for a moment, to take a nice deep breath into your spine, and to pray for your enemy as this: "I love you, I release you, and I forgive you though I may not understand you." And you hand your enemies and their hurting hearts over to God and His love for them, for God is never in judgment against anyone, but loves all equally. And you, within your heart of hearts, want to receive the very same love in your life, to acknowledge it. And the only way to acknowledge the love of God is to accept it in your heart and express it in the world, and in so doing you have the validation that you are seeking, i.e., that God loves you and hears your cry, hears your whispers and hears your prayers.

Now, you release your enemy from the confines of your hatred for them. You release your enemy from your fear. You release your enemy from your home, from your surroundings, from your life. You release them into the loving arms, the bosom of God, to be cared for and nurtured, to be placed once again gently back into the body so that they can as well move forward. You do not become the enemies' enemy by wishing ill on anyone. Certainly there are those who are, if you will, in less than understanding of you, of your life. They do not understand what it means to walk in your shoes upon this school called Planet Earth. They take you for granted. They don't understand that you feel pain. They don't understand that you can be hurt, and they do not care either. However, my dear friends, do not commit your adversaries to the darkness either. Instead, uplift your enemy, uplift those who are your adversaries, pray for their movement into greater light of understanding. Pray very hard, but very simply, so that you are not trying to fix them, nor are you trying to change them, but only beckoning the light within them to come to the surface.

You have this ability. It is simple truth that comes from within you, and it releases you from having to control, manipulate or change anyone. It releases you from having to do the hard work. It allows for God to make the corrections where He deems necessary.