Proverbs 25:22

This verse is the second half of a proverb about treating enemies with unexpected kindness — the verse before it instructs giving food and water to someone who hates you. The phrase "heaping burning coals on his head" is an ancient metaphor that scholars believe refers to the deep shame and remorse that can wash over a person when they receive undeserved kindness — heat that melts hardness rather than destroys. In other words, your generosity may do more than help your enemy in the moment; it may crack open something in them. The proverb closes with a simple promise: God sees this kind of costly, counterintuitive love and rewards it.

Lord, you loved me when I was still your enemy — and that changes everything. Give me the courage to return kindness for hostility, not because it is easy, but because it looks like you. Soften my grip on my own wounds, and remind me that you see every act of grace I extend. Amen.

Think about the last person who really got under your skin — a family member who keeps taking shots, a coworker who undermines you, a friend who betrayed your trust. What is your instinct? Most of us want distance, or justice, or at least the satisfaction of a cool silence. But this proverb points somewhere entirely different. The image of "burning coals" isn't about revenge — ancient readers would have recognized it as a picture of unexpected warmth, the kind that produces not resentment but something like shame and softening. Kindness, it turns out, can do what anger never could. This doesn't mean being a doormat or pretending the hurt didn't happen. But it is worth asking: is there someone in your life you have written off — someone you've decided doesn't deserve your grace? What would it cost you to do one small, genuine thing for them this week? Not to win. Not to manipulate. Just because you follow a God who did exactly that for you when you were still his enemy.