Loving Mean People

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Luke 6:27-28

We know that we are in a battle with powers and principalities, but what we struggle with the most is how to battle them.  We fight people instead of demons and this is where we lose the battles.  When you are in covenant with God, by virtue of your baptism, you hand your enemies to God.  This means let God deal with the people.  We battle demons.  It requires putting on Spiritual Eyes.  It requires knowing whose voice and Kingdom you are listening to, and being able to recognize this with others.

How do you do this when toxic people seem to surround us?  How do you do this when your parent, your spouse, your child, who aren’t even your enemies, fling yet another poison arrow at you and offend your heart?  Let alone dealing with those who just are outright mean…  We know we do this through forgiveness.  By forgiving completely.  But it seems impossible when they fling poison again and again.  We respond by fighting back at them and the devil laughs as he watches us destroy our relationships with one another.  We must also understand that forgiveness does not mean people should not have consequences for their actions.

First and foremost, you must KNOW in your heart that you are loved totally and completely by God.  When you rest securely in God’s love you can walk with confidence not in self hatred or despair.  When you know God loves you, which He totally and completely does, it becomes easier to forgive because you know the poison arrows flung at you by others are not true.  You must discern what is a poison arrow of accusation, and what is actually true and where you may need to repent.  When you walk in God’s love, it is harder to be offended.  You recognize when someone corrects you and it is true and you don’t get offended, and you recognize when someone is just down right mean and you need to forgive.  The purpose of what I am about to describe is for those times when someone is just plain mean.

When someone is lobbing accusations at you that are not true, picture in your minds eye that there is a demon wrapping themselves around that person and squeezing them.  They cannot get free because they are trapped in wounds of un-forgiveness themselves.  As they hurl insults at you, just picture the demon squeezing them so hard it’s like an injection of poison instead of air that they breathe, so when they speak the only thing that can come back out is poison and it comes out at you.

You have two choices when this happens.  You can let the poison enter you and fling it back out at them in defense of yourself which actually invites demons to attack you, OR you can fight spiritually.  You recognize what they’re saying isn’t true and that it says more about them and who they are listening to than it says about you.  It is in these moments that you can turn this into prayer for them.  Prayer that they be freed from the demon that is wrapped around them.  When we do this we start, by the power of prayer, to loosen the grip the demon has on them.  When we ask for the intercession of the angels and saints, they come to our aid loosening the grip and fighting the demon who has them in bondage.  The Angels and Saints are in a state of grace so they have more power than any demon because that grace was gifted to them by God.  It is how the Mystical Body of Christ should be operating, all of us working together to loosen and free people from the grip of the demonic.  The more you pray and speak love out of your mouth, the more you are a conduit to change in others.

If we can look at people this way, we would stop flinging poison back at people and we would be praying a lot more.   And we would see a drastic change in the world.  When we see the world this way we are hating intelligently.  We are hating the demon wrapped around them instead of them.  We recognize the demonic as our enemy and realize the person is not our enemy.  We actively fight the demon who is trying to crush them.  We are willing the good of the other and the salvation of the other, working with the Mystical Body to bring about a pouring of grace upon another person.  Christ could see all of this, and it is why He went to the cross to overcome it and teach us how to overcome it through Him.  This is why all things should begin in prayer.  Call upon the Saints and Angels to intercede for people who harm you.  In time the Angels and Saints who battle with us will have these people resting in their arms instead of being devoured by hell.