BLESSINGS
IN PERSECUTION

Topics: Blessings; Enemies; Overcoming; Persecution; Perspective

References: Numbers 23:11; Proverbs 25:21–22; Matthew 5:44; Romans 12:20–21

Serbian bishop Nikolai Velimirovic spoke out against Nazism in the early 1940s. For that he was arrested and taken to the Dachau concentration camp. There he prayed:

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them. Enemies have driven me into your embrace more than friends have. Friends have bound me to earth; enemies have loosed me from earth and have demolished all my aspirations in the world.

Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless and do not curse them.

—Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic, Prayers by the Lake (Serbian Orthodox Metropolitanate of New Gracanica, 1999)