I once heard someone pose the question, do you hate or love better?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought this was a very interesting question. I have sort of a default reaction to these sorts of questions, but then the longer I think about them, the more nuanced they get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s both easy and hard to hate. It\u2019s easy in the sense that you can very easily let hatred consume every part of your day to day life, but it\u2019s hard because in clinging so strongly to those feelings, we remain closed off and angry. I think humans can only handle so much hate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Christians, we know that we are called to forgive and to love, even our enemies or those who persecute us. This is a radical difference from the ways of the world, the ways that would have us clinging to hatred and disagreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To love also has different levels of difficulty. People you care about, people who treat you well, they\u2019re easy to love. It\u2019s almost involuntary. But the people who do you wrong? The people that don\u2019t try to love you back? It is hard <\/em>to love them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We know we\u2019re called to it, but we can tend to drag our feet a bit, because it\u2019s not always simple. But just because it\u2019s hard doesn\u2019t make it bad. Some of the hardest things we will do in our lives will be the most worthwhile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back to the original question: do we hate or love better? Is our response in the face of trial, adversity and hurt to love others? Or do we brood and harbour anger deep down? When something makes us bleed, what comes out? Jesus, or hatred?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I once heard someone pose the question, do you hate or love better? I thought this was a very interesting question. I have sort of a default reaction to these sorts of questions, but then the longer I think about them, the more nuanced they get. It\u2019s both easy and\u2026<\/p>\n