Like a fire in my bones1 A FIRE IN MY BONES: WHY I CAN’T SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP ABOUT THE GLORIES OF GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS AND WONDERS OF HIS LOVE2
I’m sorry, but I cannot let this week, much less an attempted assassination, go by without saying something. Whether Joe Biden’s rhetoric “get Trump in a bull’s eye” was figurative, suggestive, directive, just an unfortunate coincidence, or the most politically damning in a long line of faux pas depends. One thing is for sure: whatever you may think of Donald Trump—and there were definitely things I didn’t like about America’s 45th president, or at least the Donald J Trump presented by global news media— assassination is beyond the pale!
How do you treat your enemies? How do you treat people that either covertly or openly oppose you, who clearly find certain things about you annoying, who seem to exclude you socially, who appear to consistently prefer others over you? Don’t tell me that you don’t have any enemies! Beyond the social mask, there are people who could be fuming at the memory of something you off-handedly said, or whose tone of voice upset you when they responded to something your kids did.
All of us probably have more enemies than it’s healthy to think about. And even if we’re reading more into things than is necessary, Jesus’ words, “Love your enemies . . . pray for those who despitefully use you” (Luke 6:27-28) surely bear thinking about. Whatever your petty annoyances, fears, concerns, hurts, struggles or troubles, why not “give them all to Jesus”?3 Or as the apostle Peter writes, “humble yourselves before the Lord, that he may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon him; for He careth for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7).
Rather than concerning himself with small picture enemies, such as Roman soldiers who could legally force Jews to carry goods a mile, Peter reminds us of our big picture enemy, Satan, whom, Paul reminds us, we are fully equipped by the armour of God to fight. The challenge to love our slap-happy, or in Trump’s case, trigger-happy, enemies is as binding as it has ever been. Nevertheless, whatever “nunchucks” our frenemies wield, or how many “carrots” they steal, or seem to keep on taking from the vegie gardens of our soul, let’s not lose heart.
“Cast your bread upon the waters,” writes Solomon, “and you shall find it after many days” (Ecclesiastes 11:1, KJV). Solomon’s poetic reference to bread can be interpreted in various ways. Even if we may sometimes appear to be giving the best of ourselves to black holes, whether that’s shipping commercial grain, which is always rising and falling in price, across the seas (NIV), the ritual casting off of sin, sometimes represented as small pieces of bread, upon the water, for those sects of Judaism that practise Tashlikh4 in this way, or, at least from a suburban perspective, casting perfectly good rice5 into inscrutably dark and deadly paddies, let’s remember that it’s better to be audaciously gracious than eaten up with resentment at others’ rudeness and ingratitude.
Whenever we feel overwhelmed with our own negative emotions (or perhaps especially then!), let’s turn our eyes upon Jesus and contemplate his perfect character of magnanimity: “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7). As Christ reminds us in Matthew 5:45, does the sun discriminate between the good and the bad? Or does rain fall merely on the righteous, but not on sinners? Let’s not cease sharing the good news of Christ’s salvation with people just because our efforts do not yield an immediate result.
- Jeremiah 20:9. ↩︎
- Joy to the World: Lyrics from The Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and applied to the Christian State and Worship by Isaac Watts, (1719); Tune from The National Psalmist by Lowell Mason, Boston, 1848. ↩︎
- The Imperials, No shortage album, 1975. ↩︎
- Wikipedia article on Tashlikh. ↩︎
- Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible; F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Day by Day. ↩︎
