Truth

In order to get past hate, we have to find our way back to truth. Hard truth. The same hard truth that we didn't want to face in the first place. 

And it's not easy. 

See, hate blinds us to truth. It has to. And not just the truth about whatever situation we were trying to avoid; hate blinds us to the truth about the object of our hate. 

There can be no redeeming qualities for a person or a group of persons that you think you hate. You cannot let yourself have one moment of sympathy with them, one inkling of pride, one iota of good will. You cannot let yourself be convinced that they are anything but completely, totally, 100% detestable or else the facade of hate that you've built up will start to crack...then crumble...and then bring you to the truth you didn't want to face in the first place. 

Imagine you have crafted a hate toward a particular individual, as a way of protecting yourself from some truth you didn't want to deal with. If you then run into that individual and see them strong, healthy, happy, successful, etc. then you have two choice: either you can accept that maybe they aren't that bad after all (and thus, force yourself to reckon with your hate and the truth behind it) or you have to decide that there is something very dastardly in them after all that is quite good at faking it and has everyone else fooled, thus convincing yourself that they are even more worthy of your hate than you even thought. 

Most of the time, we do the latter. It's just easier that way, we think. 

One little bit of truth always leads to another, which leads to another, which eventually brings us back to the truth that we were trying to get away from in the first place. So there's no space in hate for any smallest, tiniest, most troubling bit of truth at all because it can bring the whole enterprise down. So hate keeps us doubling down on it for the rest of our lives unless we make an intentional decision to do the hard work to enter the tough spaces and deal with the truth. 

That's what makes hate so tough to overcome. We begin to hate almost instinctively, as a protective mechanism built somewhere deep into the broken human psyche, but we have to be intentional about choosing against hate and, well...that's just harder. It's not as instinctive. It's not as easy. 

But again...what is your hate really getting you? 

A constant bitterness, a smaller world, a perpetual fight against things you can never defeat, an ongoing defensiveness...we could go on, but must we? Isn't this enough to choose against hate? To commit yourself to the hard work? 

This series began as a reflection of an encounter I had recently with someone - one of the very few persons in this world - who hates me. Honest-to-God hates me. Because hating me is easier than grieving loss and brokenness. Despite my best efforts over many years, there is nothing I can do to change this person's mind, and I started thinking about why that is...and the answer came quickly and clearly: because ceasing to hate me, choosing to recognize any of the millions of very good things about me, deciding to recognize the ways in which I am created in God's image, takes this person back to the very point at which they chose hate in the first place and requires them to face the truth of brokenness and loss all over again. And...that's hard. 

But it's hard for me, too. It's hard to be the object of someone's hate because you know it's based on a lie. Because you can feel them trying to push the walls of your world smaller (even if they don't succeed). Because you know there's nothing you can do to change their heart until and unless God changes it so that they can choose truth. 

Because...so often, the experiences we have with hate come from places close to home, from persons we once loved and perhaps still do, and it's so hard to watch their hearts get wrapped in this blackness, in this darkness, in this lie. It's so hard to watch them unable or unwilling to do better. And, of course, it stings a little that whatever love you used to have between you isn't enough love for them to choose truth. So..it stings. Even when you understand it. 

But as I said yesterday, all of this hurt, all of this understanding, all of this knowing that I have about what hate really is...it just drives me to grieve. It drives me to weep. It drives me to pray for those who are stuck in it. And...despite being the object of it, let me make clear - I'm not the one stuck in it. I'm not the one whose life is fueled by hate. It honestly doesn't affect my day-to-day a single tick. Not one. I think sometimes when you hate someone, you get this idea in your head that they spend all their time thinking about how to make you miserable, but let me be clear - I don't think about the persons that hate me at all. I just live my life. Embracing all the good and beautiful and wonderful things of God, grieving the broken things of man, praying for the restoration of it all - even of all the hateful things, and I go on about my life. My head space doesn't dwell on hate the way the headspace of the hater has to - has to, because that's how hate works. 

So I can only grieve. And pray. And face the truth and do my best to embrace it, whether that means accepting it or working hard to change it or whatever it looks like.

Because the last thing I want to do is buy the lie and end up on the other side of this whole thing, full of hate and darkness myself. 

That's just not me.