Thank you for the thought-provoking feedback to tough question number one! I appreciate your time spent engaging in these discussions. I will begin with a short introduction to tell you how this second topic came into being. Last year I was in conversation with someone concerning past relationships, and the individual asked me should we pray for God to bless someone who has hurt us in the past. The person did not mean that we shouldn’t ever help the person or anyone in need, but do we specifically ask God to bless the individual? I told the person I would write a post on their question one day, so here we are.
I will give you a made-up example to make this clearer. Someone from a past relationship treated you with less than acceptable behavior. Now the individual is experiencing some hardship. Do you intercede by asking God to bless them? We know that everyone will reap what they sow. No deeds good or bad go unnoticed by God, and He will repay everyone according to His will, not ours. So, I ask, where do we stand? Is it alright to pray blessings upon the person or not?
What are your thoughts on the matter? Have you ever been personally wronged in a relationship and now see the offender suffering from something, whether it be financial woes, sickness, or whatever? Do you step in and ask God to have mercy and turn the situation around? Or do you say this is part of their reaping time?
As always, I invite you to share personal experiences. Do you know family or friends who are facing a situation of this nature? Is there a biblical perspective on it? If so, what is it? Well, your turn now. Waiting to hear from you, and don’t forget to submit tough relationship questions you may have. They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause. Psalms 109:3. I’ll be back next week with a new post, Tough Question: “Why Do Some Christian Marriages Fail?”
Be encouraged, and God bless!
Sister Jackie
I found myself in this very predicament with my daughter’s father. The relationship was toxic from the beginning and constantly oozed of dysfunction and erratic behavior. I made the decision to do what was best for my daughter and I and leave. In 2018, I attended a freedom conference at my local church. During the conference, we had powerful session of prayer on various topics. At one point, there I was with the prayer leader interceding on his behalf. Despite, the foolishness I encounter with him and his lack of fathering to his daughter, he is still God’s child. So it tough to pray for God to bless and cover someone who hurt you….of course. But that is what makes God so amazing. He do things that I can’t.
Wow! Look at God and look at you! When we allow God to move us past our hurts and pain, not only will He do amazing things, but His character will amazingly shine through in our life. Thank you so very much for sharing this life experience. Through our testimonies, others can witness the works of God. May God’s abundance of grace and love shower you from above.
This is a good question and there was a time that I would say no. I asked the Lord a question one time as to why the person that hurt me was continually being blessed and the Lord said that I will bless who I will. Now, when the person(s) are going through something, I just say not my will, but Your will be done Lord. I do not wish or hope for ill will upon anyone because I don’t want it to come back to me. I want the Lord to be with me when I’m having a rough time, so I have to pray for the one that I may not want to. I got angry with someone this morning before I did my devotions and when I got to my devotions the passage of Scripture for the day was “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing” (paraphrased) . Luke 23:34. Reading this passage convicted me to first forgive the person for what I was angry about, then to ask for forgiveness for lashing out. I was in my right to be upset, but this Scripture convicted me to address the issue in another way. We may not want to pray for people who hurt us, but Jesus intercedes and prays for us to the Father even when we hurt Him by our sins.
So many essential points you have expressed in your response.What a testimony to how we must forgive. When we can forgive others and seek forgiveness for our-self, it moves us in the right direction. And we always want to be in position for Jesus to intercede on our behalf. May God’s grace and mercy continue to cover you. God bless you!
I would say yes, pray for a blessing for them. Blessings come in many forms and one of the greatest blessings from God is the gift of salvation, and so whatever situation they may find themselves in, I would pray that they recognize God for who He is and that they are brought to salvation through repentance. The Bible teaches us to pray for those who have wronged us on purpose and so I know that my own blessings are sometimes tied up in the prayers that I pray for those who have done me wrong, ie. Job! I won’t say it’s always an easy thing to do, but it is the God thing to do. We go beyond our feelings and tap into the Spirit and say WWJD, even better, what has Jesus done… How many times has he blessed me, even when I’ve wronged Him and turned my back on Him. So I say all that to say, let’s practice what the Word teaches us to do, as hard as it may be at times…. It will bring greater blessings upon our lives.
WWJD, and more importantly, what has Jesus done already- Insightful thought. If we keep those two points foremost in our mind, outcomes of what we do will yield more God-like results in our behavior. Thank you so much for taking the time to give thought to this question. May the grace of God be with you always. Be blessed!
In the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
(Matt 5:44-46)
“But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and PRAY for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.
That ye May be the children on your Father which is in heaven; for He make this the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not the publicans the same?”
With that said, my first prayer would be for myself;
That I forgive him; secondly, that God would change his heart and cause conviction to come upon him that he may repent and apologize. My forgiving them would not be based on their apology to me.
The words of Jesus are indisputable. They are the alpha and omega in all matters. Thank you so much for taking the time to enlighten us through the scriptures. The journey to blessing others often begins with our mission of forgiveness. God bless you, and heaven smile upon you.
As hard as it may be, it’s our job as Christians to always show the love of Christ. I’ve been in this situation before and I remind myself that God can handle it way better than I can. It’s so much easier to let it go, pray for them and keep it moving. 🙂
Keep it ALL the way moving…lol
Moving straight toward Jesus!
Chinasa allowing God to handle what’s hard for us, is always the best route. Maybe not the easiest, but ever the best way. Thank you so much for taking the time to read and respond to this post. May the blessings and favor of God rest upon your life. God bless you!
NO!! That may be the will of God for that person’s life..so who am I to interfere??
Just kidding..kind of. I do think it is possible to pray for God to bless someone who has hurt you in the past. However, one must have had truly forgiven that person. Yes, the bible says to bless those that curse you but in order to do so fully, you must have no ill-will towards that person. It can be hard to get to that point but it is possible.
For my ownself, I have recently prayed for an ex to be blessed by God, even after he had done some hurtful things. It helped that I had forgiven him (that took some time) but it also helped to know that I was not part of the reason he hurt me. It had more to do with his own internal issues – I was just the easier target to receive the reaction. So knowing that it was not about me made it easier to pray for God to bless him.
Now some of these other suckas…ya’ll pray my strength in the Lord…lol
Yes, I am praying for you.😊 On another note, forgiveness is critical in moving toward being able to pray for those who have hurt us. But again, as I stated in another reply, let’s consider WWJD and what we would want Him to do when we have wronged Him through our sins. Thank you for taking the time to express your thoughts, and may our awesome God grant you abundant blessings and the desire of your heart. God bless you.