I Hope My Enemies Are Loving Me Too

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I love my enemies.

Those words used to feel impossible.
But Jesus keeps calling me deeper:
“Love your enemies… pray for those who persecute you…
that you may be children of your Father.”

 

Love is not a feeling.
Love is wishing God’s goodness on another person—
even the ones who wounded me,
misunderstood me,
ignored me,
or walked away.

And I hope my enemies are loving me too.
Those I hurt on purpose.
Those I hurt without knowing.
Those I passed over.
Those I failed to love when God placed them in my path.

Because the Father “makes His sun rise on the bad and the good.”
He pours out light on everyone—
not because we deserve it,
but because He is good.

To love my enemies
is to step into that same sunlight.
To let God stretch my heart
until it looks a little more like His.

Pray

Lord, teach me to love those who hurt me.
Teach me to love those I have hurt.
Let Your goodness fall on all of us today—
friend and enemy alike. Amen

What We Receive, We Become

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At the center of our faith
is a quiet but powerful truth:
we become what we receive.

When we take in fear,
fear is what we hand back to the world.
When we breathe in scarcity,
we start living small, guarded lives.

Fear and scarcity clench our fists.
They shrink our prayers.
They paint God as distant or withholding.
But that is not the Father’s heart.

When we receive His overflowing goodness,
something in us loosens.
Breath deepens.
Generosity becomes possible again.
His abundance doesn’t just fill us—
it spills through us.

This is the shape of discipleship:
Trust the Father.
Receive His gifts.
Become His generosity in the world.

Jesus says,
“Ask and you will receive.
Seek and you will find.
Knock and the door will be opened.”
Because from God,
everything—everything—is gift.

And Jesus asks,
“Which one of you would hand your child a stone
when he asks for bread?”
If we, with all our limits, know how to give good gifts,
how much more does our Father delight in giving what is good.

So today, the invitation is simple:
Receive what God is already pouring out.
And let His goodness become the goodness you give.

Prayer

Father, 

Open my hands to what You give.
Quiet the fear I keep breathing in.
Loosen the grip that scarcity builds.
Let Your goodness rise in me again.
Fill me with the gifts You pour each day.
Shape my heart to trust, receive, and give.
Make Your generosity the rhythm of my life.

Amen

Will You Turn Back to Me?

 

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There’s a truth we don’t like to admit.
The devil rarely tempts us with things that look evil.
He tempts us with distortions of the good—
riches that promise security,
honor that promises belonging,
pride that promises strength.
None of these are bad in themselves…
but twisted just a little,
they pull us away from the God who made us.

And into that quiet drift, Christ steps in
and offers us the opposite of what we think we want.
Poverty instead of riches.
Powerlessness instead of honor.
Humility instead of pride.
They don’t glitter.
They don’t shine.
But they are gifts—
gifts that open our hands,
clear our vision,
and make room for God.

We see that same clarity in Jonah's story.
A whole city hears God’s warning
and everything changes.
They drop their pride, their violence—
and they turn.
And the moment they turn,
God turns toward them with mercy.

And Jesus carries that message straight into the Gospel.
He tells the crowd:
you keep asking for signs,
you keep waiting for proof,
you keep wanting God to perform on command.
But the only sign you need
is the sign of Jonah—
because Nineveh didn’t wait for certainty.
They heard God’s voice
and they changed their lives.

Jesus brings it closer:
“Something greater than Jonah is here.”
How much more should we turn
when the Son of God Himself
is calling us home.

So everything—our temptations,
our distortions,
Jonah’s warning,
Jesus’ invitation—
gathers into one question,
quiet but searching:

When I call you to turn back,
will you trust My mercy enough
to actually turn?

Prayer

Lord, 

Turn our wandering hearts to You again.
Loosen our grip on the things that cannot save.
Quiet the pride that rises, 

the fear that clings, 

the lies that pull us away.

Teach us the holy freedom of humility,

the deep peace of trusting Your mercy.
Open our hands to receive what only You can give.
Open our eyes to see the One who calls us home.
In our turning, meet us with grace.
In Your mercy, make us new.

Amen

Trusting the Father in a Busy World

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Jesus gives us the words of the Our Father,
but before He teaches us how to pray,
He teaches us why:
because the Father already knows what we need.

In a world that runs fast,
He invites us to slow down.
To step out of the noise.
To stop performing.
To remember that prayer isn’t about many words —
it’s about making room.
Room to breathe.
Room to listen.
Room to let God be God.

“Give us this day our daily bread.”
Not tomorrow’s answers.
Not next week’s clarity.
Just today’s grace —
and the patience to receive it in God’s time.

And when He calls us to forgive,
He’s not adding another burden.
He’s opening our hearts.
Because a clenched heart cannot hear,
and a hurried heart cannot wait.
Only a trusting heart can rest in the Father’s love.

So today, in the middle of our busyness,
Jesus invites us to pray simply,
to trust deeply,
and to wait with hope —
because the Father already knows,
and the Father is already near.

---

The Our Father

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name;
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.

When You Stand Before Me

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Sometimes the Gospel holds up a mirror.
And it shows us something we’d rather not see.
Today Jesus asks a quiet, piercing question:
Where do I meet Him… and where do I turn away?

 

I think of a deacon I once knew.
At the altar, he was flawless.
Vestments perfect.
Movements precise.
Every prayer said with confidence.

But outside the sanctuary, something changed.
His words grew sharp.
His patience grew thin.
He walked past the very people
Jesus calls “the least of these.”

He loved the liturgy…
but he struggled to love the poor.
He proclaimed the Gospel…
but he missed the Christ standing right in front of him.

And before we judge him,
we have to breathe and admit:
there is a little bit of that deacon in all of us.

Because Jesus isn’t asking
how well we serve at the altar.
He is asking
how well we serve Him
in the hungry,
the lonely,
the forgotten.

When love becomes a person in need,
do I recognize Him?
And do I respond?

That is the question.
And that question is meant
to change us today.

Prayer

Lord Jesus,

open my eyes to the places I pass by.

Soften my heart where it has grown hard.

Teach me to see You

in the hungry, the lonely, the forgotten.

When love takes flesh before me,

let me recognize Your face.

Make my hands gentle,

and my steps ready to respond.

Amen