On Praying for the Enemies of Life

On this anniversary of Roe v. Wade it’s time to say a few words about abortion.

The Carthaginians sacrificed infants to Baal, it’s well known—perhaps twelve or so a year.

In 1915, the Ottomans began the Armenian Genocide; over a million Armenians were killed.

During World War II, the Nazis murdered approximately six million Jews.

Since Roe v. Wade, we Americans have killed around 60 million unborn infants. It’s an enormous number, enormous in terms of size and also in terms of the word’s original meaning of staggeringly great evil.

But there’s a difference. The Armenian Genocide and the Shoah were matters of government policy; the abortion toll is the product of 60 million individual choices. Many of those women were coerced by their male partners; others acted in despair; some acted out of simple and cold-blooded expedience. But all of these women, and their male enablers, and the clinic staff who did the actual deeds, all of these have at least one thing in common: Jesus Christ died for them.

It is vital, essential, almost unbearably necessary, that we on the pro-life side of the equation do not forget this for one moment. Did they, in that moment of weakness, coercion, or disdain, act as enemies of life? They did.

But Christ told us to pray for our enemies: not to hate them, but to love them, and to pray for them. We are to pray not just for the woman whose boyfriend threatens to kill her if she doesn’t “get rid of it” but for the woman who gets another abortion as a matter of course; not just for the Abby Johnsons who repent but for the monstrous Kermit Gosnells who don’t.

This is hard.

This is very hard.

I have an observation, and a suggestion.

First, we are called to love them and to pray for them, not to have warm feelings for them. To love them is to seek their ultimate good, not to be chummy. God never asks us to manufacture feelings out of whole cloth, but to seek their good despite our feelings.

Second, the way to do something hard is to work your way up to it. And the best way I’ve found to learn to pray for my enemies is to work my way up to it by degrees; and the best tool I’ve found is Julie Davis‘ prayer: “Lord, have mercy on me and bless them“.

In this prayer we find:

• Recognition of our own sinfulness; we are in no position to cast stones.
• A wish for God’s blessing on the other party.
• Submission to the authority of God: we seek blessing for them on God’s terms, not our own.

And this, to seek the blessing of God for another, is love.

Start small. Pray this prayer when someone cuts you off on the freeway or gives you a dirty look or takes the parking spot you were looking at. Then work your way up. Pray it for the annoying co-worker, or the impossible relative. Pray it for our egregious politicians instead of cursing them.

And today, pray it for the 60 million missed chances to choose life. For those who failed in the moment of testing (as we all too often do ourselves) need life desperately; and Christ has it for them, and in abundance, if they will turn to Him.