By Larry Young
As a young person, I experienced realizations about “hate” that changed my life. The July 20, 1998 issue of The Gleaner published my testimony about hate on the inside front cover titled: “Hate Casteth Out All Love”. Today I am republishing this article here because our country is being rocked by intense dangerous hatred, but the haters don’t realize how much damage they are doing to themselves and everyone around them.
“I learned to hate—to really hate—when I was still a teenager. It started with a major disagreement with some people. And I let it get under my skin. Such was my resentment, that whenever I got upset, I’d think about those enemies, and I’d use them to take out my frustrations.
As time rolled on, whenever I’d happen to see one of them, the hatred would boil up again. Incredibly, time did nothing to heal the hate. The longer I hated, the more intensely I hated. The obsession festered, even though there was no longer any contact with them.
And I actually grew to enjoy the feeling of hating them. More than once, I caught myself swinging my arms and making fierce faces as I practiced them “pay” for their sins. I didn’t see this as a problem. They were bad people. They’d wronged me. They had it coming.
TOO MUCH HATE
But something else was going on. As I looked inside my soul, I realized I was losing the ability to genuinely love others. The hatred for my enemies was coloring my view of all people. I wore a convincingly loving mask. No one seemed to suspect what was going on inside me. But the battle was raging. To love, or not to love, that was the question. I was tempted to hold onto the hatred; it was becoming a part of my personality. And I didn’t want to let it go.
But I realized, too, that loving to hate was making it hateful for me to love. By harboring hate, I was missing out on some of the best things in life. People around me had something I didn’t have. And I knew why. So I let the hatred go. I put my rage behind me—cold turkey. I refused to dwell on it. I refused to let it color my life. I simply let it go, and I moved forward.
Incredibly, when I did that, loving others took on a whole new look and meaning. I still remembered how I’d been wronged, but letting go of the hate changed how I dealt with those memories—and ultimately with the people themselves. For the first time in my adult life, I was free. The burden had been lifted.
And with the departure of hate, God was able to come fully into my life. I went on to discover how well the process of forgiveness—my own experience—was understood in the Christian community. For years, I had dutifully droned a passage in the Lord’s Prayer about forgiveness. But now, it jumped right out at me with a whole new meaning. “Forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me.” Now I understood! It said clearly, “If I am harboring destructive feelings toward someone for what they’ve done, and I can’t actually bring myself to forgive them and let it go, how can I expect God to forgive me when it’s my turn?”
Not only was Jesus coaching me through the Lord’s Prayer, but now there was the implied promise of being able to love, in a whole new way. As I think back on those earlier years, I’m amazed at how little my feelings actually affected those I hated. And I’m equally amazed at the terribly debilitating effect it had on me and on my ability to love. Love has been restored. Where I once felt hate, I now feel concern and pity. God has taken my hate and replaced it with forgiveness and love. I can now truly pray for my enemies—from the heart.”