by Don Huntington, Editorial Director

Two men were riding on an elevator. The car stopped at a floor and a third man got on. He walked up to one of the passengers, deliberately spat on him, and then got off at the next floor. As the man wiped off the saliva with his handkerchief, he showed no sign of anger nor gave any indication that he had found it in the least disturbing to have another person spit on him.

“What’s the matter with you!” shouted the other passenger. “How can you just let another person do something like that to you without getting upset?”

“That guy has great problems,” the man answered. I’m unwilling to let him hand off any of his issues to me, nor grant him the ability to disturb my serenity.”

How wise that person was! We can’t do anything in life without attracting enemies. While he was alive a great number of people considered Abraham Lincoln to be an evil misguided fool. Some Christians believe that Billy Graham is doing the work of the devil. Most of all, of course, His enemies put Jesus Christ to death. And if He came back today, a countless number of people would joyfully kill Him again if presented with the least opportunity to do so.

I know there are people who don’t like me and who speak evil of me. People report rumors about our magazine – unfounded and cutting remarks that could only have been started by people who do not like us and who wish us ill. Such reports don’t shake me because, after all, having enemies never fazed Jesus’ sense of serenity. “Father forgive them,” He prayed as He went to His death at their hands.

My attitude of forgiveness must have nothing to do with whether a person necessarily deserves or even particularly desires my forgiveness. I have to forgive because otherwise the sinister forces of resentment and an unforgiving attitude will absolutely cast down the sense of joy and peace that rightfully belong upon the throne of my heart.

And after all, nobody in this world needs my forgiveness more than I need forgiveness from myself. If I can only accomplish that monumental task then it should be easy to forgive anybody else for anything.

By the power of grace I can actually do better than merely forgive people who do me harm; I can embrace them in love. As the quote for this month shows, I can draw an inclusive circle of love around the exclusive circle of rejection that people might draw against me.

I was with a fellow worker one day when someone made a slighting remark about me that I just let pass. “Don, you don’t even know it when you are insulted,” she said.

“Well, I know it but I don’t pay any attention,” I answered. “What would be the purpose of acknowledging the insult?” I asked her. “I’m not going to insult the person back. I’m not going to feel bad about the insult. Why not just let it go?”

There’s something better than just letting things go. I discovered long ago that even the worse people often have characteristics that I can respect or, in many cases, actually be in awe of. So I deliberately attempt to cultivate the habit of looking for things that I can admire and even cherish about everyone I meet. Figuring out how to do that has been an empowering exercise because it becomes easy to forgive someone I admire. It is a piece of cake to not take offense if the offender is someone I cherish.

“I never met a man I didn’t like,” Will Rogers said. And these days I know just what he meant. It wasn’t that he and I have never found someone who wasn’t worthy of being disliked, but at some point we simply made up our minds that we were going to like people without making a judgment whether they were worthy of our affection or not.

I don’t imagine that I’m as good as Will Rogers, but I’m determined that the clean light of the love that I’m living in these days will remain undimmed by any shadows of animosity that I might hold against anyone in this world. People can’t make me hate them by spitting on me.

And besides, loving unlovely people is the way anybody can bring a small part of heaven down to earth.