It is an honor to have friends. In fact I am honored to have bosom buddies who have told me they’re going to die for me. I have suspicions that they might be joking, since we have been partners in everything. But I am always on the lookout—they might make good their promise.
On the other hand, it is not necessarily a dishonor to have enemies. I have not seen or heard of anyone who has not made any enemy. Jesus had. Paul and Peter had. While social decorums may find enemy-making a downside, it is next to impossible to be able to live as old as 62 with your life story having no villains. It simply does not make you normal. My wife has become insomniac because of the enemies I had; on the other hand, I have become amnesiac as to the number of people who have desired to do me harm. No, it is not a compliment for one to be without enemies at all. “Woe unto you,” says Jesus, “when all men shall speak well of you” (Luke 6:26).
When it comes to making enemies, I am very choosy. None of those I had guided to enter the kingdom, none of those I had baptized, had become my enemies either in the kingdom or out.
I had tried to make friends of my enemies, because it was what the Lord desires for his disciples to do. It wasn’t easy, but I did. I had hugged the man who once tried to stab me to death, reconciled with the cousin who once tried to stone me, made peace with the mountain man who wanted to hack me with a bolo. The past is past between us. The lady who became my most rabid enemy had patched up with me, and she it was who later defended me from those who would destroy me by word and by deed. Yes, it is a sweet thing to be able to live under one world roof with former enemies now upgraded to friends.
You may consider enemies as the villains in your life, but some enemies became heroes. Abraham Lincoln, for example. Alive, he was the most hated man in the southern United States.
