I try to live my life by imitating Jesus, not just in words or beliefs, but in the way I think and act. Recently, I found myself struggling with a difficult question; one that forced me to confront the tension between loving my enemy and protecting myself or others.
Suppose I’m in a house for the night, and a gun has been placed there. Suddenly, an armed intruder breaks in — he’s aggressive, deranged, and all attempts at calming him down have failed. I am faced with the possibility of being killed. In that moment, is it moral to use the gun to defend myself? Or would love require me to sacrifice my life, even for someone bent on violence?
What if the intruder is just a desperate, hungry man with an empty shotgun, trying to scare someone into giving him money for survival? In that case, the scales shift. Here, using the gun may not be moral. There’s still humanity in the intruder. Reciprocity isn’t destroyed — just broken — and perhaps love calls me to listen and help.
And then came the most critical shift in the dilemma: what if there are children in the house with me? Now, it’s no longer about my self-preservation. It’s about protecting the innocent. If I let someone harm them because I refuse to act, is that love? No. That’s abandonment. Here, love becomes justice — and justice means intervening, even if it means using force as a last resort.
In all this reflection, one principle slowly came into focus:
“Put others before yourself.”
It sounds simple, but it isn’t. Because who the “other” is — and what love looks like in each situation — changes the moral responsibility: If the “other” is the attacker, and I am alone, then loving them may mean fleeing, or even sacrificing myself — not because they deserve it, but because Christ calls me to radical mercy. If the “others” are innocent people, like children, then love demands I protect them, even if it means resisting with force — not from hate, but from protective, self-giving love.
What would Jesus do? I think He would do what He always did: act with total, courageous love — mercy for the undeserving, and justice for the innocent. I don’t know that I could be as perfect in discernment as He was. But if I lead with the principle of putting others before myself — not sentimentally, but out of moral responsibility — then I think I’m walking the path he showed us.