A Prayer for Difficult People
For the person who tries your patience — grace given, and a heart kept soft.
Everyone has someone — the colleague, the relative, the neighbour who rubs the soul raw. Jesus' instruction is startling: love, bless, pray. This prayer obeys it.
The prayer
Father, you know who I am praying about — and you know everything I feel about them. I bring both to you.
Bless them. I say it by faith before I feel it: bless their life, their health, their home. Do them good.
Show me what I cannot see — the wounds behind their ways, and my own contribution to the friction. Keep my heart soft when I want to armour it.
Give me the strength to be kind without being crushed, honest without being cruel, and wise about boundaries. And if you can make us friends, Lord — you have done stranger things. Amen.
But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.
Pray for them that despitefully use you — obedience here does something in you first. Keep praying it; hearts (yours included) change slowly and surely.
Keep this prayer with you
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