Haters Gonna Hate?

Proverbs 6
16 There are six things which the Lord hates,
Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:

What do you hate? My kids think it’s a bad word. If you ever make the mistake of saying, “Don’t hate” or, “I hate when that happens” around them, you’re going to get some gasps of righteous indignation from my little kids. And you can be sure that they’re going to turn straight to us and tell on you. I think just last Sunday I got scolded for saying, “Don’t hate.”

I don’t really remember how ‘hate’ turning into a bad word got started, but I think it goes something like this: child A learned a new word, though not really knowing what it means, or just to be an ornery kid, child A told child B that they hated them, crying ensued, mommy and daddy made a new rule, and now that’s morphed into hate being a bad word for the Lopez kids. Don’t make the mistake of saying it around them. They’ll call you out, and tell on you. True story.

God hates. We don’t normally think about it. We in the Western world tend to think of God as this loving old man with a white beard, more akin to Santa than we care to admit. Or for some of us who grew up in very strict churches, God is that loving old man who will turn into the Emperor from Star Wars at the drop of a hat and hit you with that lightening stuff from his hands. But I never really thought about God hating anything: sure he’d zap me, but hate? What do I hate?

Hate is an intense, passionate emotion. It’s dislike to the extreme, hostile and violent. Do I hate the same things God hates? If not, then something is wrong with me. It means that my heart isn’t where God’s heart is or that I don’t truly grasp the horror of the things he hates. God has great capacity for love and mercy: the fact that I’m sitting here typing this right now instead of sitting in hell is proof enough of that. He also hates.

I think the things he hates (notice that it’s sin that he hates and not sinners) are the things that are most damaging to us spiritually and corrupt us. They are the opposite of what he wants for us and from our lives: a lying tongue, attacking the innocent, devising and thinking wicked plans, quickly turning to evil, lying when you know the truth, spreading disagreement among brothers.

I have to be honest, my first reaction to reading this was, “Those things are bad, no doubt, but I don’t feel a passionate response to those.” Maybe I’ve let myself get jaded? Maybe the cynic in me has taken over and just expects these things from people? Whatever it is, if I don’t hate the things that God hates, then I’m off track. If I don’t feel as passionately about God things as he does, then there’s still some work that needs to be done in my life.

I’m praying that God will stir me up. I’m praying that he’ll stir up the passion in me so that when I see these things, starting in my own life (removing the log in my own eye before the splinter), that I would feel the same way he does. I’m praying that I wouldn’t coddle that sin and let it continue to grow, but that I would hate it, and stomp it out. What do you hate?