LOVE IS A CANDLE "We tend to think love is a feeling, but it is not. Love is an action; love is something we do for others".
God didn't say, "Like your enemy". It is very difficult to like your enemy. But to love your enemies is different. Love is an act of the will, where you act lovingly even if you do not always feel loving. We tend to think love is a feeling, but it is not. Love is an action; love is something we do for others. Development in the spiritual life, in the moral life, occurs when you have to make choices. You have a choice to follow your feelings of jelousy or hatred or to use your will to do something loving instead. Our freedom is based on our ability to rise above our feelings and to act based on our will.
This is not just true with our enemies. It is also true with our loved ones. With our spouse, we don't always feel loving and romantic. If married life depended on our feelings for our spouse from moment to moment, very, very few would survive. True love is when you are feeling as dead as a stone and you say to yourself, "This is one to whom I have committed myself and she has committed herself to me". You do not have a great deal of control over when you feel resentful or irritable, but you can still choose to be loving - to act lovingly. Sometimes the best you can do is to say to God or to yourself, I want to want to love... (Desmond Tutu, God has a dream, 2004).