I recently had a learning experience that has revealed one of my faults. I have a hypothetical list of people that I have labeled freeloaders. These are people in my judgment who: only want to talk and rarely listen, only take and never give. They never see what they are doing wrong but always see what others do wrong; they believe only their problems matter and want others to be in crisis with them, draining the life out of others. They believe they are the center of the universe and everyone else revolves around them. I bet you are the same as I and have names of people popping into your head right now.

Does God really expect us to love freeloaders, the ones who drain our vitality? I think the answer is yes. How do we bring ourselves to love them? Paul gives us a clue on how to overcome this weakness in Romans 7:21-25, “So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law: but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me prisoner of the law of sin at work with me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

There’s another part to the way God empowers us to forgive, which was brought to mind by a quote I read the other day. It said, “Forgiveness is accepting that YOU are just like other people.” You see other people are also making lists of freeloaders, and we’re likely to be on their lists! We have many freeloading faults of our own, including some that we dislike in others. Forgiving others depends on us asking for forgiveness from others – and from God. Note that this is intrinsic in the Lord’s Prayer.

We need to pray for those we have put on our freeloaders lists. Even more important, we need to pray for God’s help in changing ourselves to get us off the freeloader lists of others. Doing so will help us to realize that we are all uniquely and wonderfully made by our creator, and He loves us all unconditionally.

Joy