Reflection and Prayer Prompts
Learning to Hate Well
Personal Reflection Questions
Take your time with these questions. You don't need to answer them all at once. Let yourself sit with whichever ones resonate most.
1. What do you hate?
Not what you think you should hate, but what actually triggers strong opposition in you. What behaviors, attitudes, situations, or patterns make you feel that flash of "this is not okay"?
2. How do you typically respond when you encounter something you hate?
Do you explode? Withdraw? Stuff it down? Go silent and resentful? Attack the whole person? Pretend you're fine? What's your pattern?
3. Think of a relationship where resentment has built up over time. What specific behaviors or patterns have you been tolerating that you actually hate? What would it look like to address the behavior without attacking the person?
4. Is there anything you've been hating that might actually be good for you?
Consider: feedback, vulnerability, someone else's boundaries, being held accountable, receiving help. Do you have strong negative reactions to things that could help you grow? Where did that protection come from?
5. Is there anything you should be more bothered by that you've learned to tolerate?
Sometimes we accommodate things we shouldn't accept—in ourselves, in relationships, in our communities. What have you grown numb to that deserves opposition?
6. When has your hatred gone global—becoming about a whole person rather than a specific behavior?
Think of a time when your anger turned into contempt, when you stopped seeing any good in someone, when you wanted to cut them off entirely. What was happening in you?
7. What would it look like to approach a current conflict like a healthy immune system—isolating and addressing the problem to save the relationship rather than destroying it?
8. What do your strongest hatreds reveal about what you love most?
Every hatred is the flip side of a value. If you hate dishonesty, you love truth. If you hate cruelty, you love kindness. What do your hatreds tell you about your deepest values?
Guided Prayer Language
These prayers are offered as starting points. Feel free to adapt them or simply sit with the invitation they offer.
A Prayer for Honesty About Hatred
God, I bring you my hatred—the feelings I've been taught to hide, the anger I don't know what to do with, the opposition that sometimes consumes me.
I confess that my hatred hasn't always been directed well. I've turned it on people instead of problems. I've let it fester into resentment instead of addressing things directly. I've also suppressed it so thoroughly that I've lost touch with what I'm against.
Help me see clearly. Show me what deserves my opposition and what deserves my embrace. Give me the courage to address what's wrong without destroying what's valuable.
I don't want to be defined by my hatreds. But I don't want to be ashamed of them either. Teach me to hate well.
A Prayer for Redirecting Hatred
God, I'm beginning to see that some of my strongest reactions have been pointed in the wrong direction.
I've hated vulnerability because I learned it wasn't safe. I've resisted feedback because I was criticized harshly. I've pushed away help because I was ashamed to need it.
Help me untangle my old protections from current reality. Help me learn to love what's good for me, even when it's uncomfortable. Help me redirect my energy toward what's genuinely destructive instead of toward what threatens my pride.
Give me wisdom to know the difference between an enemy and an ally in unfamiliar clothing.
A Prayer for Redemptive Action
God, I don't want my hatred to stay stuck inside me, turning to bitterness. I don't want it to explode out of me, causing damage I can't undo. I want it to move me toward healing—mine and others'.
Show me where I need to take action. Give me courage to address problems quickly and specifically, like an immune system responding to a threat. Help me fight the infection without cutting off the finger. Help me stand against what's wrong while preserving what's valuable.
Make my opposition purposeful. Let it build rather than destroy. Let it lead to redemption rather than revenge.
Journaling Prompts
Use these prompts for extended written reflection. There's no right length or format—just honest processing.
Prompt 1: The History of Your Hatred
Write about how you learned to handle anger growing up. What did you see modeled? What were you taught—explicitly or implicitly—about negative emotions? How has this shaped how you deal with hatred as an adult?
Prompt 2: A Relationship Defined by Resentment
Choose a relationship where resentment has accumulated. Write about what happened, what you've been tolerating, and what you actually wish was different. Then write about what it would look like to address this as a mature person—targeting the infection to save the relationship.
Prompt 3: The Things I Hate About Myself
We often turn our hatred inward. Write about the things you hate in yourself—the patterns, the failures, the parts you wish didn't exist. Then ask: Am I responding to myself the way a healthy immune system responds? Or am I operating like an autoimmune disease, attacking the whole system?
Prompt 4: The Values Behind My Hatred
List five things you strongly hate. For each one, write about what value it reveals. What do you love that makes you hate this? What does this tell you about who you're becoming?
Prompt 5: A Letter to Someone You've Hated
Write a letter (that you don't have to send) to someone you've struggled with hatred toward. Try to distinguish between your opposition to their behavior and your overall view of them as a person. What would you want them to understand? What would it look like to hold both opposition and grace?
A Final Invitation
You don't have to figure all of this out today.
Hatred is complicated. It's woven into your history, your wounds, your values, and your identity. Untangling it—learning which hatreds to keep, which to redirect, and how to express them well—is a lifetime's work.
What matters is that you've started. You've been honest about the fact that you hate things. You've considered whether your hatred is pointed in the right direction. You've asked how to move from reactive destruction toward purposeful action.
That's enough for now.
Keep returning to these questions as you grow. Your answers will change. Your hatred will mature. And over time, what you're against will help clarify what you're for.
These prompts are designed to accompany Dr. Henry Cloud's teaching on "How to Hate Well." Use them for personal reflection before, during, or after group discussion.