I will write on this only in answer to a few questions I’ve gotten this week about how I view curses and prayers for harm — not from a Biblical sense of right or wrong, but from a practical sense of their effect.
I don’t believe, not even a little bit, that words spoken against me, whether in schoolyard anger or in prayer, can affect the cosmos, the will of God, the natural course of events or anything else. God has a plan for me; I believe it’s a good plan, entirely unchanged by curses hurled against me. That someone utters a curse on me leaves absolutely no tangible effect on what happens in my life; in terms of the increased likelihood of harm coming to me, it’s as if someone yelled that I was, say, fat as a can of baked beans. Just words. That’s all.
The effect is on the one who uttered it. The hate that energizes a spoken, directed curse, and the remorse that now accompanies the one who utters it, harms him and his church community. If someone hates me, it only makes me sad. Not scared, not rattled, not angry, and certainly not ducking for cover “just in case . . . ” I wasn’t moved to tears because I was afraid bad things were now coming my way, but because bad things had clearly come the way of the one who spoke it. And so may he find peace, and may we all find blessing.