Jesus tells us that we should love our enemies and do good to those who hate us (Matthew 5:43-48).

This is a hard task to accomplish because our natural instinct is to hate those who spitefully used us, or to avoid them at least, but certainly not to shower them with affection.

But, the Lord wants us to love our enemies.

Evidently, we can only succeed in loving those we consider our enemies when we sacrifice our human instinct and allow the Holy Spirit within us to work on our behalf.

The benefits of showing kindness to your enemies.

David found himself in this position when he lost all his possessions.

Let us examine the story that led to his loss.

David lived as a refugee for many years in the wilderness because he was hiding from King Saul, who wanted to kill him.

The king felt threatened by David’s sudden rise to power and popularity after he was anointed by the prophet Samuel to take over the throne of Israel.

As a young shepherd, David slew the dreaded giant, Goliath, and delivered the Israelites from the Philistines who were enemies of Israel. This increased Saul’s anger against David.

Saul became, even more, envious when David gained more victories against the Philistines than him.

When David returned home from a victorious battle, a welcoming party of women lined the street and sing praises to David.

“Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousand.” (1 Samuel 18:7)

The king became exceedingly angry with David especially when he saw that the presence of the Lord was with David.

Saul attempted to kill David several times so he decided to flee his home with his wives and six hundred loyal men and sought refuge in the land of the Philistines (the enemies’ camp).

David became friends with Achish king of Gath and asked him for a part of his territory to live.

The king gave David the land of Ziklag, and he dwelled there for one year and four months.

David was a man of war and often attacked the neighboring communities. So, the Philistine king liked David because of his perceived loyalty.

Consequently, when the Philistines gathered together to fight against the Israelites, the king of Achish made a pack with David to be his chief guardian in battle.

However, on the day of the war when the princes of the Philistines inspected their army and saw David and his men among his soldiers, they became upset and ordered them to return home.

The princes remembered that David had slaughtered his people at a previous battle, and they recalled the song that the women had sung about David slaying his ten thousand, and so they did not trust him.

Although the Philistine king tried to defend David, the princes were adamant about their decision.

David had no choice but to return home to Ziklag. Little did he know that there was trouble at home.

When David arrived home, he found his entire village burnt to the ground by the Amalekites, and all their wives and children were taken captive.

David and his men presumed that their entire families were killed when they saw the level of destruction.

They wept bitterly!

During extreme grief sometimes people tend to find someone or something to blame. So the men turned against their leader, David, and threatened to kill him.

David was alone to bear the brunt of this tragedy.

Then, he remembered that His creator is a present help in times of trouble and so encouraged himself in the Lord.

David decided to send for the priest to make a sacrifice to God. He asked the Lord whether he should pursue the enemy and overtake them. The Lord immediately replied,

“Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.”

(1Samuel 30:81 NKJV)

It was then that David realized that their families were alive and so he immediately gathered his men together to pursue the enemy.

When they arrived at the brook of Besor, two hundred of his men were too weary to cross over, so he left them and continued with four hundred men.

Showing kindness to your enemy will reap a better result!

Eventually, on their journey, David’s men found a weak and sickly Egyptian in the field and took him to David.

David fed the Egyptian with bread and water and then gave him some appetizing desserts of cake made of figs and a cluster of raisins.

After the Egyptian’s stomach was filled and was satisfied he was more than willing to answer all of David’s questions.

Although David recognized that the dying man was part of the bandits who had ravaged his home, he exercised patience and self-control and did not torture the sick man to gain vital information about the whereabouts of the others.

Instead, David showed his enemy kindness.

David’s action is contrary to some of the strategies used in our present day society where prisoners of war are sometimes tortured to reveal information.

It is questionable whether torturing or instilling fear in a captive is a useful method to gain information.

Perhaps if we change our tactics and show them love and kindness instead of anger we will reap better results.

The well-fed Egyptian told David that he was a servant of the Amalikites and they had recently burnt a village but he fell sick on the journey and the others left him behind to die in the desert.

The Egyptian man agreed to take David and his men to the enemy’s campsite.

When David found the thugs, they were busy celebrating not knowing their intended doom.

David and his men attacked the enemy and recovered all their possessions including all their families and animals plus the spoils of the enemies.

You will recover all that the enemy has stolen from you when you learn to repay good with evil.

Have you ever had to show kindness to someone whom you consider your “enemy”?

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