How Could I Pray for Hurtful People?

By: Larissa Bell

And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. 1 John 4:21

I cannot lie. It is not hard for me to pray for people who are nice to me. It is even easy for me to pray for people I do not know – broken down on the side of the road? In a fender bender? I got you! I pray for safety from injury, financial help to repair their car or replace it, wisdom in dealing with insurance companies, and so on. But praying for my enemies? People who hurt me or my family? That gets a little more challenging.

Sure, I could pray as David did a few times in Psalms when he asked God to destroy his enemies. However, I know from other Bible passages that this is not a Christlike response. I John is full of verses about loving others – including enemies and people who have hurt you. He even says that I cannot claim to love God if I don’t pray for them. Then Jesus, Himself, taught about doing good to those who hurt you and despitefully use you. (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:28)

More than likely, you have been hurt by people, even people who call themselves Christians and go to church. Just as the Pharisees were in the Bible, people are ready and willing to cast stones of judgment without grace, mercy, or love. God reminds me about Saul, a zealous, religious person in his day. He whole-heartedly believed persecutions of “blasphemers” were pleasing God. I am sure many Christians were praying for God to “take care of him” and ease their suffering. “But God.” God got a hold of him and he, now Paul, turned his zealous efforts towards the spread of the true Gospel (Acts 9)!

Can you imagine how different our Bible and world would be without Paul’s teachings? So, one way to pray for enemies that your flesh does not want to pray for is that God’s will would be done in their life. His ways are higher than ours. We cannot see the big picture to know what their potential may be. We must try to remember that we are not the judge or jury. We are but dust, no better than they are, and have our own sins to pray about! Just take a look at Psalms 103:8-17. Is there pride? Are you basing your thoughts and judgements on truth and good things (Matthew 7:3-5, Philippians 4:8)? Pray for God to reveal anything that needs changing or correcting in your life to help resolve the discord or disunity. 

My other frequent prayer is that the cause of Christ is not hurt or slandered by the situation. “Hurting people hurt people” is a well-known quote that reminds us that our flesh is prone to react and lash out when hurt. It is unfortunate that people fail to think ahead of the harm they are doing when they put their unfiltered feelings on Facebook, podcasts, blogs, or even gossip to others in the church. They fail to consider that many Christians and unsaved alike have been turned off to church and a relationship with Christ due to a Christian’s or church’s response to hurtful people. So, we should pray that people do not stray from the faith or fail to accept our perfect Christ because of imperfect Christians going through life’s challenges.

Challenge: Write down a list of people or situations that are hurtful or hard to pray for. Take those names and burdens to God every day for the next week and ask Him to work His will in their lives. Ask Him to show you anything in your own life that may be complicating or contributing to the situation. Then pray that God will be glorified as He works “all things together for good.”