Despite being persecuted, the prophet Jeremiah still cared about the people - and why it's in our interests to pray for our enemies
To say that Jeremiah had a difficult life is no understatement. God tasked him with telling the people of Israel what God had to say. Much of it was warnings. Jeremiah did this, but the people wouldn't listen to him. Instead they persecuted him. None of this stopped Jeremiah though. He remained faithful to the Lord and did everything that was required of him.
Indeed, he even went what most people would consider above and beyond - he interceded for the people to the Lord as shown in the Bible:
Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,
look around and take note!
Search its squares and see
if you can find one person
who acts justly
and seeks truth—
so that I may pardon Jerusalem.
Although they say, ‘As the Lord lives’,
yet they swear falsely.
O Lord, do your eyes not look for truth?
You have struck them,
but they felt no anguish;
you have consumed them,
but they refused to take correction.
They have made their faces harder than rock;
they have refused to turn back.
Then I said, ‘These are only the poor,
they have no sense;
for they do not know the way of the Lord,
the law of their God.
Let me go to the rich
and speak to them;
surely they know the way of the Lord,
the law of their God.’
But they all alike had broken the yoke,
they had burst the bonds.
Jeremiah 5: 1-5
As we can see from the Bible passage above, Jeremiah sought redemption for the people of Israel - his people group, even though they persecuted him. Wow!
This reminds us that we too, should pray not just for those whom we love, but also those who are our enemies.
To clarify, this does not mean that we should have any sort of relationship with someone who might be harmful to us - but we can (and should!) pray for them, their future, and their relationship with God, especially if they don't have a relationship with God yet.
We need to be aware that we ourselves are not perfect either. Our enemies and ourselves have fallen short from God's viewpoint because we both have sinned against God. Our sins may be different types of sins than our enemies, but we have both sinned.
Praying for an enemy is a completely different thing from having a relationship with them. There is no need to be around someone who is not good for you - it's OK to cut ties with them. If this is confusing for you, I have written a separate article on how forgiving someone for a past sin does not equate to needing any kind of future relationship with them. Forgiving someone for a past hurt is between you and God, not between you and them. The other person does not even need to know about the forgiveness.
If you need more help with this, I have written a separate article about how it is actually to YOUR advantage to forgive someone who has hurt you. So even if you were being purely selfish, you'd still want to forgive. It's not about the other person, it's all about your relationship with God and keeping that relationship intact. In other words, don't sacrifice your relationship with God because of difficulties with someone else. Your relationship with God is far, far too important for that.
Jeremiah likely did not trust his people, based on the amount of persecution he had received. But he could (and did) still pray to God for those people. Even though it would have been tempting to feel vindictive to the people and hope that they would be punished for persecuting him and for being disobedient to God, Jeremiah still prayed that the people would be spared. This is something we too should do for our enemies (remember, we don't need to continue having a relationship with them). Praying for our enemies is not about our enemies, it's about keeping our relationship with God intact.
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