Things I Hate

I don't hate this! I love it!

This may seem like an odd list,

for we aren’t supposed to hate anything, are we? 

Oh, but that’s where we’re wrong. 

Six things the Lord hates, yea, seven are an abomination to Him. 

Seven, the perfect seven—the things to hate.

~ 

I hate pride, especially in myself. 

I especially hate spiritual pride—

the pride that keeps track of one’s own “good deeds”

and spoils them all by announcing them

and expecting something in return. 

~  

I hate unforgiveness, especially of one’s enemies and unsaved people. 

How are we supposed to show them God’s forgiveness

if we don’t practice it ourselves? 

I hate when people who are in the wrong

keep going over and over what you didn’t do wrong

and spread a completely different story than what really happened. 

 ~ 

I hate wasting time.

But then again,

that extra five minutes reading an article still teaches me something. 

That extra ten minutes listening to a new song expands my soul. 

That lazy Saturday morning with untimed Bible study

that stretched way past the breakfast I didn’t have

into the lunch I didn’t have

is not time wasted but time saved. 

I hate waiting for people to turn right

as if they have the rest of the day when I don’t.

 ~ 

I hate wasting anything. 

I often look at something before throwing it away—

such as a sardine can—

and think how I can use it to hold paper clips inside my desk drawer,

provided it doesn’t stink of sardines for years to come. 

I hate when students write one thing on a piece of paper

and then wad it up and throw it away. 

I hate when they deliberately mutilate a pencil,

especially one that was new and one that I loaned them.

 ~ 

I hate when people don’t believe me 

and try to manipulate a different answer out of me,

like when students beg me as if I am unjust to keep my word. 

 ~ 

I hate most contemporary music.

Yes, I know.

I'm supposed to keep that to myself.

But I can't, and I didn't.

I hate pretense. 

I hate grandstanding. 

I hate false worship.

Enough said.

~  

I hate when naïve people stand up for bad people,

thinking they are just cutting them a break. 

Give me a break. 

Let’s call a spade a spade and be done with it. 

I hate a stance of positivity for the sake of positivity. 

There is nothing more negative than being positive at the wrong time. 

That’s called gaslighting—the thing narcissists do best.

~   

I hate when people say, “Oh, my God,” over the stupidest things. 

You spill your coffee, OMG. 

You sneeze too loud, OMG. 

You find a great sale, OMG. 

God isn’t “their” God at all, or they wouldn’t abuse His name. 

I cringe every time. 

My heart aches when professing Christians say these grossly mindless things. 

God will not hold them guiltless. 

 ~ 

I hate when people speak ill of their husband or wife or parents. 

Period.

I hate immodesty. 

It’s gross. 

Why don’t people realize that? 

Everybody has all those same body parts,

and nobody else asked to see them, okay? 

 ~ 

I hate when good people are silent at bad things. 

I hate moral weakness and compromise. 

Lukewarmness is not only distasteful,

it’s the fastest route to apostasy,

from which there is no return.

~  

I hate—absolutely HATE—abortion. 

It’s murder at any stage. 

And I HATE when death-loving liberals

scream to return a woman’s “reproductive rights”

and her “rights” over “her own body.” 

They need to go back to seventh-grade biology class. 

Then they need to watch an abortion. 

Then they need to teeter over the pit of hell until they come back singed with shame. 

Then they need to fall flat on their faces and repent

and stand up and fight to end abortion

with all the other hated “right-wing” weirdos who will one day wear a crown. 

 ~ 

I hate stupid labels and alphabet salad that legitimize sin.

So, we're back to where we began:  pride. 

Man’s pride is God’s abomination,

for pride is what Satan exerted against a perfect God in a perfect environment. 

Nothing was good enough for him. 

One day the tables will be turned and all the things I hate will be cast into hell. 

False doctrine,

Progressive Christianity,

wokeness,

all the things that are now so popular—

cellphones,

social media,

pop culture,

all the things that turn people away from God—

all these things will one day be cast into hell. 

~   

I hate sin—my own and other people’s,

especially those who know better and don’t care. 

~  

And one more thing: 

I hate when you ask people to pray earnestly for something—

or make a comment that our nation needs to pray—

and they give you a stupid, even supercilious, stare,

as if to marvel, “What are you so uptight about? 

God’s got it. 

Things will turn out the way He wants.” 

What a copout. 

He wants us to pray. 

He told us to watch and pray. 

He marvels at our prayerlessness and our unwillingness to stand in the gap,

to intercede,

to break a sweat in all-night prayer such as our Lord invested into His disciples. 

~ 

How is it even possible that people absolve themselves of all agony in prayer,

when the Lord reminded us that they that sow in tears will reap in joy? 

The effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous avails much. 

If we were truly righteous, we would see—

we would perceive—

the true dangers all around us. 

~ 

Spiritual laziness has been mistaken for faith,

but faith without works is dead. 

I blame a pervasive religious fatalism that has taken our world by the throat. 

Jeremiah the weeping prophet wept for a reason. 

Jesus spent all night in prayer on many occasions. 

Someone stared at me big-eyed and said once,

“My prayers are simple.  I have faith.”

She did not ever come to understand what I meant. 

~ 

I don’t know how I would ever have lived to this present moment

if I had not spent those times in prayer

where the clock stopped and I had to pray through or die. 

My heart was broken, my spirit was crushed,

the complexities of life alone needed hours to comprehend,

and, even then, could be understood only with the divine light of truth shed upon them. 

~ 

The Lord collects our tears in a bottle,

but most of us have no tears. 

What if we travailed for souls? 

What if we fasted as the Lord assumed we would do?  

Fasting implies a long time praying when we would have been eating. 

Try eating as much as you pray, and the weight loss revolution will speak for itself. 

~ 

I hate spiritual lethargy and fatalism masquerading as faith. 

It isn’t faith.  It’s disobedience. 

That does not mean all prayers are long. 

It doesn’t mean the Lord does not hear simple prayers.  

But if all our prayers are simple, we are oversimplifying our responsibilities. 

You don’t hang a 30-pound picture from a Command strip. 

~ 

Yes, we are to be as children.

But being childlike in our prayers does not mean being trite and simplistic and superficial. 

“What, could you not watch with me one hour?”

our Lord asked of His disciples in Gethsemane. 

We must pray as the Holy Spirit leads us to pray—

pray until we pray through,

pray until the burden lifts,

pray with importunity,

pray with faith but with understanding. 

Whatever we do, we are to do with all our might. 

But people just don’t want to bother. 

And that’s a terrible thing.  I hate it.  I must pray for them! 

 ~ 

We must keep our hates without harboring hatred. 

Hatred is a static state. 

To hate is an action verb that requires commitment to make the world better,

to take a stand,

and then to take the fall. 

Hatred won the Civil War. 

Hatred won World War II. 

Hatred for slavery, hatred for Hitler—these things we must hate. 

~ 

Let us get busy hating what God hates,

which includes prayerlessness!!! 

Then we may love what God loves.