Six Weeks of Prayer: Wednesday, October 18, 2017

| Posted By Charles Gaston

It seems so simple. Love your neighbor. Put their interests first. Think about other people more, and about yourself less. Do the right thing. Just do the right thing. It seems so simple. Why does it sometimes get so difficult then? I want to want to love my neighbor as myself, but I do not see myself doing what I wish I would do, at least with any consistency. (And even when I do, I start to question my own motives …) And who is my neighbor? I sometimes am not sure which is easier: to be loving towards those with whom I live, towards complete strangers, or to those “less fortunate” than me.

So what am I to do? In the midst of this conundrum, believe in Christ all the more. Would you be having the conundrum if you did not already know what to do? Would you be having the conundrum if the Lord did not place that within you? Most of the time, you already have an idea of what it would be concretely for you to love your neighbor as yourself: who and what do you have in mind? As you pray, what’s next?

And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:39)

PRAYER

Lord, we ask you mercifully to receive the prayers of your people which call upon you: grant that we may both perceive and know what things we ought to do, and also to have the grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same, through Jesus Christ. Amen.