A Scarred Soul

I was listening to an excerpt of Dr. Martin Luther King’s speeches where he was talking about Jesus’ directive for us to “love our enemies and turn our cheeks…”. He reasoned that Jesus knew these actions would be difficult to implement, but that it would be better to have “scarred bodies” than “scarred souls”.

As singles, we often encounter negative situations that tempt us to react in negative ways. You broke my heart, then I will stop loving you. You spread false rumors about me, so I will not be nice to you. You played me like a piano, so I will do what I can to get revenge. Each time we repay meanness with meanness, we introduce another scar to our souls.

I know it is hard to love others as God commands us, but that’s the key command that Christians should live up to. We Christian singles need to remember that we get out marching orders from God, the very definition of love, not satan who is the opposite of everything that God stands for. So when we treat others as badly as they treated us, we are switching allegiances to the other side!

Eventually, a scarred soul will lose all of its spiritual vitality. Then it will become difficult to pray on a regular basis, get up to go to church or to bible study, love others as God commands us to, affirm each others’ humanity as wonderful creations of God and forgive (and forget) when we would rather lay our religion down.

At people’s worst is the time when people need our best. Be honest, it is easy to love someone who loves you or be nice to someone who is nice to you. But spiritual infants can do that! Jesus laid down a challenge for us to grow and mature in our ability to love as God loves us. He might as well have said, “Wimps, need not apply.” If He understood then that we may have to endure some scars on our bodies to preserve the health of our souls, then why would He expect anything less of us today?