"Love your enemies."

That's a high calling. It's definitely not something that I would choose to do by instinct. If I followed my instinct, I would probably want to continuously punch my enemies in the face. I'm not going to lie. I know, I know... that's not something Jesus would do. Too bad we're talking about what I want to do... not Jesus. My will is a lot more important than Jesus', right?

And maybe that's my problem. Maybe when I need to be like Jesus the most are the times that I would much rather be like me - the incomplete me that is, the one who is without or once in awhile denies the calling of Jesus. I'm pretty good at rejecting the desire to yearn for the Spirit's direction at times. The funny and humbling thing is: I know when I do it, when I reject that thirst.

I don't want to follow Jesus when things sometimes get too tough. I mean, love my enemies? Really? That's hard. It's like trying to keep me from eating ice cream... only a lot harder than that. I think that people sugarcoat it though or dramatize it, making love seem easier or less significant than what it really is. Loving God is not for pushovers. It's a distinctly high calling that's incredibly hard to embrace. Loving God, which essentially means loving your enemies as well, is for 'bad-asses'. I can't believe I just wrote that, but in my culture it makes the concept of loving God easier to understand... and probably cooler because I used a cussword.

Back to loving my enemies...

What does that even look like?

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12.29-31).

Dang that sucks. I think that it's important to note that we must love God before we love our enemies (a.k.a. our neighbor). Wait? What the -?! How dare I compare our enemies and neighbors! What was I thinking? What's wrong with me?! I mean to say that they're one in the same? Aren't my neighbors the ones who are for me and my enemies are the ones who are against me?

No.

First of all - loving God is not for the faint at heart, as I've said. I'm to love God with absolutely everything that I've got. When I love him with my heart, I surrender all my passions to Him. When I love Him with all my soul, I sacrifice all that makes me 'me' to Him. When I love Him with all my mind, I give away all my dreams to Him. And when I love Him with all my strength, I forgo all of my own efforts to His service and to His will. Loving my God requires ALL of me - to the very last ounce of who I am. It's more than obedience because love that demands this much asks for more than that. It asks for life where the return is better life itself.

And this same God turns around and asks us to also love our neighbor? Our enemies? Christianity is for REAL men (or women, don't worry ladies, I know you read this...)

We have this idea that anybody who is against us is our enemy. In some cases, I think this is the truth, especially in football or any other sport where the opposing team is trying to defeat you and your ugly face. I don't have a lot of respect for sports because marching band was never considered one (even though it was on ESPN the other day). That's kind of a sore spot with me. Marching band takes more out of a person than getting caught in a stampede of eleven 250lb. jocks. Then again, I've never been caught in a stampede of eleven 'cattle'...

But truly, I think that it's important for us to not draw a line between us and our neighbor. It's damaging to the love we're able to pour forth if we view everybody as our enemies. And I think as human beings it's easy for us to selfishly view someone as an enemy if they offend us, if they do something 'human' to us. It's almost like we have no tolerance for it anymore or something and we want to inadvertently shut them down - so we treat them like jocks treat the chess club. It's just not cool! And it really takes away from your manliness (or woman-ness...). When are we going to start actually loving people without regard to their human characteristics?

I think Christians in America, and probably in the world at large, are pretty good at creating enemies. That's right. Christians create enemies... because sometimes Christians suck at love.

And I'll humbly admit: I'm a Christian that sucks at love.