“Thou shall love thy neighbour and hate your enemy, but I say unto you. Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Matt. 5:43-44

This is easier said than done. When someone abuses you and causes you injury, physical or otherwise, what you  really want to do is to return to them a full measure of hate and injury. This is what the flesh wants.

Many years ago, a young man wanted to go to seminary. In my heart, I heard the Lord nudging me to put him through seminary. He served us well and I began to make payments. Some months I had to do without  in order to pay his seminary.

He served our local church as the pastor and did well for two years. After two years he began to leave the church and attendance came down substantially. Knowing that he had a call to ministry, I had to let him go and serve in another church in order to strengthen his call and allow him to learn from someone else.

We made all the arrangements for his departure. When he left, he took many of the books that belonged to my father, and he spread hate all over the area. Many families left our ministry due to his bad testimony about us.  My choice was to continue to pay his salary for 7 months and ignore what he was saying in the area.  Later I found out that many of the months I paid him to go to seminary, he stayed home and kept the money for himself.

I chose to love him in spite of all he did to hurt us and harm the ministry – a very difficult decision.

A local leader, because of his connection with this young man, began to spread negative rumors about our ministry. He did a great job that even the mayor of the town heard the news and looked for me to explain. I really wanted to go to this leader and bring him to accountability for what he was saying about me.  After several months of prayer, I decided to ignore this local leader and forget about him.

I can honestly say that these two decisions were the hardest decisions I have ever made. Praying for them was difficult.  To turn them to God was not easy. You see, in the period of 4 years, I paid over $26,000  in seminary education that was not used as intended.  In the other case, the local leader harmed our ministry that had stood for 40 years in this community without blemish.

Now, after years past, both the young man and the local leader are in difficult situations. The young man is going through tests that will make him or break him. Much unrest waits for him. The local leader has fallen from grace from the community and will need much grace to overcome.

I did the right thing in these two cases. Loving your enemies and blessing the one who curses you is not easy.

Rick Bonfim