Archive: Prayer That Helps You Love the Hard-to-Love

By Margaret Therkelson

“Wherever you have suffered deep disillusionment, know that it is not because God is not good. It’s that God is trying to lead you into a deeper understanding of his faithfulness,” says Margaret Therkelsen. In the past several years this tall, radiant, former music professor-turned-counselor has been one of the leading advocates of prayer in the United Methodist Church.

 

Margaret’s training in prayer began early. She learned much about prayer at home from godly parents who prayed. From ages 16 to 26 she was active in the Camps Farthest Out, an interdenominational camp which focused on the life of prayer. There, she was privileged to learn from some of the great Christian men and women of that time—Starr Daily, Frank Laubach, Glenn Clark, Agnes Sanford, and Louise Eggleston. At the age of 16, Margaret herself was leading small prayer groups in the Camps Farthest Out and in her local United Methodist church.

 

But when a Christian leader she greatly admired fell from the Lord, the disillusionment she felt capsized her into despondency and cynicism about spiritual things. She doesn’t mind using the word backslidden when she describes her next 15 years. Yet, even during that time her constant prayer was, ”Lord, don’t let me go.”

 

Meanwhile her career in music soared. She practiced 8-10 hours a day and performed extensively. One of the highlights of her music career was her performing Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony.

 

It was in the hospital room where she watched her father, a United Methodist pastor of 40 years, pass away after seven years of suffering that she recommitted her life to the Lord. The next day she began making herself available to God again through a regular, seven-day-a-week morning time of prayer.

 

That was 12-½ years ago. Out of that daily encounter with God came a divine formula of prayer she calls, “The Love Exchange,” which has revolutionized her time with God. She is anxious to share about it with others.

 

With the message of the redemption and rejuvenation which comes from spending time with God, Margaret encourages the spiritually weary. Today she is heard daily on local radio discussing prayer. She travels extensively, drawing rapt attention from Christians gathered to learn more about prayer.

 

Seven years ago, Margaret felt called to focus wholly on prayer and spiritual direction. To support herself in this pursuit, she earned a Masters in Family Studies and began a private counseling practice in Lexington. Her book, The Love Exchange, from which the following has been excerpted, has just been released by Bristol Books.

 

The Editor

The persistent ring on our old alarm broke the silence of that spring morning eight years ago. I roused from sleep with tremendous expectation. Since returning to a daily, early-morning prayer time, 6:00 to 7:00, something drew me each morning to my place of prayer. I slipped out of bed and, with anticipation that Jesus would already be there, groped my way down the hall to our family room.

As I sat down, I immediately felt such love for Jesus. How good He was to me! He had been cleansing me of anger and resentment toward Him and myself. I was able to say with Joel that God truly was restoring the years the locust had eaten (Joel 2:25).

Early in my prayer time I had been speaking aloud words of love to Jesus, but now words failed. With uplifted hands I called out, “Lord, you know I love you with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and all my energies.”

At that moment I experienced His mighty love pouring down over me. He said, “I love you, Margaret, with an everlasting love. Though the mountains may be removed and the hills shake, My loving kindness will never be removed from you. I have you inscribed on the palm of My hand. You are precious in My sight. You are honored, and I love you.”

This almost-overwhelming experience had been the result of several years of taking five to eight minutes of my daily prayer time to pour out my love on God and receiving by faith His love for me by reading aloud the Scriptures that communicated His love for me. In other words, I would linger each morning in God’s presence, not only to love Him but to allow Him an opportunity to respond to me. By faith I believed God was giving me His love.

Something was happening to me. As I daily received God’s love by faith and declared my love for Him, there emerged stirrings in my heart of a deepening love for Him. The promise of 1 John 4:16—of how much He loves me—was starting to become a reality. “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him.”

I came to refer to this giving and receiving of love as my “love exchange” with God. It became a vital and empowering part of my morning prayer time. Tugging at me was a growing urgency to abide in this “love exchange” all day.

Several years later as I continued in the love exchange, my love for God and His love for me remained so comforting. But I was sensing anger, jealousy, and envy toward three women. In my prayers for them, which were infrequent and shallow, I imposed demands on God to change them. (My mother calls this “being on God’s advisory board, or acting as general manager of the universe.”)

Soon God showed me I did not have good will toward these three, much less love. He showed me that divine love at its lowest level is goodwill toward everyone. I must want only what is good for each person and wish him or her no ill at all.

I was being selective in my love of others. On the inside my love was shut down, but on the outside I acted nice to those I did not like.

During our morning love exchange one day I felt God asking me if I were willing to allow His divine love to flow through me to these three women. I answered, “God, do whatever you need to do to cleanse me and let your love flow.”

At that point God led me to Matthew 5:43-48. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven: for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore, you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

The divine formula for learning to love my enemies was right there—so simple. The formula begins with honest prayer for those I find hard to love.

I felt I heard God say, “I want you to start praying with good will for these women. As you pray for them instead of yourself, I will begin to give you My divine love for them. As you begin to love them, your prayers for them will come from the heart.”

I answered honestly, “I cannot obey this right now. Maybe next year I will be more mature in Your love and can love them. I need to work my way up to Matthew 5:44.”

“No, you do not work your way up to loving as you should. While you obey and begin to pray, I will give you My love for these women now,” He said.

“All right, I’ll try. Lord, bless them,” I prayed.

“Is that all you are going to say?”

“Well, bless them a lot.”

“Yes, go on. Can you pray that with more feeling?”

“Well, bless their children,” I continued.

“Isn’t that rather general?”

“Well, bless them in unusual ways.”

“That is a little better, keep going.”

“Lord, I pray you will give every good and perfect gift to these three women.”

There was a little more feeling, but I was ashamed of how loveless I was in my praying for them. I was beginning to see that prayer reveals how we really feel toward others.

Finally, out of my heart and my will, I said, “Oh Lord, manifest Your presence in their lives, reveal Yourself to them more than to me.”

“That’s more like it. You’re on the right track. You’ll receive more and more of My love as you continue to confront your real feelings and be more specific in prayer for these three children of Mine.”

“Lord, it’s hard to pray where it’s hard to love. It’s difficult to pray even with good will when you don’t care. After all, these women have hurt me; they haven’t been nice.”

Then the Lord helped me to remember the time when I had not been nice to them and to others.

“Oh, Lord, I do want to do this, to please You. We’ll go at it again tomorrow. I love You.”

What an adventure that was—to seek to pray for these women. As the days and weeks went by, I began to see these women more as God saw them and to feel His compassion for them in me.

Three or four weeks later as I was lifting them in prayer one morning, a tremendous surge of real honest-to-God caring engulfed me. Caught up in the thrill of it all I heard myself exclaim, “Lord, You are so good, You are so precious, You are so wonderful! Matthew 5:44 really works just as You said. As I’ve prayed daily for them, You have given me Your love so that I now truly care. Your love is amazing! Prayer is an open door into Your heart of love.”

“I will pour out my love,” came God’s response, “because you’ve actually been praying more for them than yourself. I always answer prayer like that. You’re beginning to really care and forget about yourself a little.”

“Why Lord, now it’s easy to pray for them. It’s a pleasure. I really care. I feel your love and my love all mixed together.”

“Yes, I love that,” God answered, “You’ve prayed yourself into my love for them which causes you to love them too.”

The amazing thing was that his love for me was never sweeter or more real than during that prayer experiment. Nothing seems to please God more than when we take His commandments to love seriously.

God began giving me opportunities to spend time with each of these three women. I saw they were really quite wonderful.

At the beginning I was praying for God to change them. Naturally, I had assumed they were the ones who needed changing. But to my amazement, I felt a change in me. I could no longer judge them; I was investing too much in praying for them.

What rare changes prayer can make! Learning to love with His love as I prayed caused something glorious to happen—as I prayed, I also loved. When God is convinced of our intentions to pray for those whom we find difficult to love, He will impart to us His love for them.