Who's at the Top of YOUR Prayer List?

From Christian History & Biography (CH&B), Issue 88 (Fall 2005), re: C.S. Lewis' ministry during World War II:

"But perhaps the most practical thing Lewis did in his war service was to pray for his enemies, praying every night for the people he was most tempted to hate.  He told his brother in a letter that Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini were at the top of his prayer list.  He wrote to another correspondent that, when he prayed for Hitler and Stalin, he tried to recollect how his own cruelty might have blossomed under different conditions into something as terrible as theirs, to remember that Christ died for them as much as for him, and that, at bottom, he himself was not "so different from these ghastly creatures." 

I'm also reminded of Festo Kivengere and his remarkable book, I Love Idi Amin (1977).  Kivengere, an Anglican bishop from Uganda, was expecting arrest from Amin, the African dictator routinely referred to as "Africa's Hitler," and escaped the country on foot in early 1977.  Within the year he had published the book.  He survived Amin's reign, and after Amin's ouster was able to return to Uganda for years of fruitful ministry.  He died of cancer in 1988 (aged 69).  [Source: CH&B, Issue 94, Spring 2007]

For further inspiration, read 1 Timothy 2:1-6 in the King James Bible.