“I thought it was over,” he said. “But they’ve made it worse.”

He had pastored in our town, then moved to another state. From the occasional reports he sent our way, it seemed a great match, him and that church. Once when I dropped by to visit him, on my way somewhere else, he told of record numbers of people coming to worship, joining the church, and being baptized. Then, abruptly, the church leadership turned on him and forced him out.

On this day, he sat in my office and told what happened.

“I’m a hugger,” he said. “And someone circulated the rumor that I had inappropriately hugged some lady. They wouldn’t even tell me who it was so I could defend myself. They just wanted me out.”

I said, “Who wanted you out?”

“A good number of the deacons and their wives. Not all of them. In fact, when I resigned, the chairman and vice-chairman resigned with me, in protest. They’ve joined another church in the next town.”

“That’s a good sign,” I said. “Of what?” he asked.

“That they thought you were being unfairly treated.”

“Oh, I was that. That’s the whole point of my coming to see you, to ask you what you think I ought to do. The entire thing was a put-up job from start to finish.”

“What do you think was behind it?”

He was quiet a moment, then said, “All you have to do is look at their record. This church has had 10 pastors in the last 25 years. Counting the months in between, that figures out to about 2 years each man. Barely time to get your bags unpacked and the pictures hung.”

“What’s the problem, do you think?”

“I know what the problem is. They keep searching for the preacher who will take orders and do what they say. And when he doesn’t–no self-respecting preacher is going to do that–they trump up some charge and force him to resign. It’s happened before and it’s what happened this time.”

“Did you inappropriately hug some woman?”

“If I did, I certainly was not aware of it. You’d think a fellow would know that, surely. That’s why the whole business caught me by surprise.”

“And now, you say it’s gotten worse? How could it get worse? You left the church, didn’t you?”

“I did. We moved to the next town this past week. My wife’s health is not good, and the doctor had told me to protect her from stress, so rather than fight this and put us both through a mess, we decided to walk away. I don’t regret that a bit. I’m glad to be free of the hassle.”

“So, what happened?”

“I’ve been gone from that church six weeks. But apparently some of the church members refused to take the deacons’ answers as to why I was forced out. They kept asking them what happened. So someone decided to make me look even worse and to make them look like heroes. They are circulating the rumor that I was unfaithful to my wife. I am so mad, I could bite nails.”

“That’s a serious charge.”

“Man, accuse me of stealing or murder. But don’t accuse me of cheating on my wife.”

“And you know who is in back of it?”

“I have a good idea. He fought me on everything I ever tried to do while I was the pastor.”

“What are you thinking of doing?”

He opened his brief case and pulled out some papers.

“Look at this. I’ve written a letter to that congregation, defending myself against that business and telling them what happened. I have a printout of all the addresses of the members, and I’m thinking of mailing this to everyone in the church.”

I glanced at the letter, all six pages of it.

“Here’s my counsel,” I said, and silently went through the motions of balling up a sheet of blank paper and shooting it basketball-style into the waste basket in the corner of the office.

“What?” he said.

“Throw it away, my friend. Forget it. Not a good idea.”

“You don’t think I ought to defend myself? Just let them get by with it?”

“Oh, I don’t think they’ll get by with it. The Lord will see to that. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to send that letter.”

“Why not?”

“The people who do not believe in you would not believe you even if they read the letter. And the ones who believe in you do not need the letter. It’s a waste of effort.”

“Then what am I going to do? I have to do something.”

“Forgive them. And love them.”

“Oh, yeah, like I’m going to do that.”

“You are. Because I know you. You are a better man than to let something like this gnaw at you and you carry a grudge against those people.”

“Well, that forgiveness and love stuff reads good on paper, but it’s a heap sight different when you’re on the sharp end of that stick.”

I said, “I’m not talking about solving that church’s problems. That’s the Lord’s job. Whatever they do, is between them and the Lord. I’m talking about something else.”

“You’re talking about me, aren’t you?”

“Right. Getting you past the anger that is eating your soul away. Fortunately, the Lord has given us a great little formula for this very thing.”

“Then you’ll have to show it to me. Because I can’t remember one.”

“Right here in Luke 6. Start reading at verse 27.”

“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

“Skip down to verse 30.”

“Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.”

“Keep reading.”

“If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount.”

“One more verse.”

“But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.”

“Okay, that’s enough. Now, what do you hear the Lord telling you to do?”

“To love these guys who did me so dirty. But that is really hard.”

“It’s not once you understand what He’s really commanding you to do.”

“I’m listening.”

“My friend, in the Bible, love is not an emotion. It’s an action. Love is something you do. Every time God commands us to love someone–Himself, our neighbor as ourselves, our wives, our children, other disciples, even our enemies–He’s commanding us to do some specific things. He’s not asking us to like them or to feel anything.”

“You’re saying He doesn’t care what we feel toward them?”

“Not much. The emotion of love is like the caboose of a train. Remember them? You don’t see them any more, but you get the point. However, the actions of love is the engine. Put the engine into gear and go do the things God commands us to do as love, and the emotions often will follow. Not always, but often.”

“What are the actions?”

“You just read them. There are four of them. In loving our enemies, Jesus gave us four actions we’re to do. Do good to them, bless them, pray for them, and give to them.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“No, those are the four most basic acts of love we’d do for anyone. If we love our neighbor or even our children, we will do them good, bless them, pray for them, and give to them. We’ll do more than that, of course–maybe hug them, spend a lot of time with them, that sort of thing. But in the case of people who make themselves our enemies, He commanded only these four actions.”

“What are they again?”

“Do good, bless, pray, and give. The point being that we are to look for ways to do something good for the person who did us wrong. When we speak to them, we bless them. We pray for them and as God leads, we look for opportunities to give to them.”

He smiled and said, “I can just see that fellow who spread those rumors about me when I start blessing him.”

“It would probably drive him nuts,” I said. “You remember the verse in Proverbs 25:22? ‘If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat. And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. For you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Paul quotes that in Romans 12:20, it’s so powerful a force.”

“Can I ask you something? You remember that guy in your last church who fought you so hard? The one you told me about?”

I said, “You don’t forget something like that.”

He said, “Do you love him? Do you do good things for him and bless him and pray for him and give to him?”

“Well, yes, somewhat. That was 15 years ago, you remember.”

“Ha. I thought so. You hypocrite.”

I knew he was teasing me, and we both laughed.

“All right,” I said, “You’ve got me there. I definitely have prayed for him, but he lives several states away and I never see him any more, so the situation hasn’t arisen where I could give him something or do something for him.”

“Then, let’s try a little experiment,” he said.

“What do you have in mind?”

“Let’s write a letter. I’ll write the guy in my former church and you write that one in yours. And we’ll just love on them in our letter. We’ll bless them, the way the Lord said. Will you do it?”

“Sure. And let’s send each other a copy of our letter. Later we can compare notes, to see if we got an answer or see any evidence of the Lord using this.”

A couple of weeks later, I received a letter in the mail, the copy of my friend’s note to his nemesis in the former church. He had heard something positive about the guy and used that as an opportunity to congratulate him, and ended by wishing him well.

I ran off a copy of the letter I had written to my guy, and sent it to him.

We’ve gotten together several times since this conversation, and once in a while we bring up this old painful subject. Neither of us ever received any kind of response from our letters, but we quickly decided we didn’t need one. Just writing the notes was the best therapy. My friend has gone on to another pastorate which God is blessing.

The wisdom of the Lord’s words has impacted both of us in a number of ways. By doing good, blessing, praying, and giving to our enemies–or any one or two of those actions–we open an escape hatch for the anger that was eating us alive to evaporate. We demonstrate obedience to Christ in a way that blesses us, and I suspect, heaps a fair share of guilt on the recipients of the letters who must be hardening their hearts against the Father. And we free ourselves to encourage others going through difficult times to love their tormentors, now that we know how the process works, that’s it’s a matter of “doing love,” not just sitting around waiting for the “feeling.”