Retaliation

It is playoff hockey time in Tennessee! We love our Preds here in the Nashville area. Last night I was watching hockey and thinking about how tough these guys have to be. These men take a beating during each period and continue to play. It is a sport like no other. Now, I love baseball and college basketball (NBA not so much) but the athletes that play those sports are nothing compared to the hockey players. I remember last year, one of the Preds players took a skate blade to the face. What did he do? He got up, skated to the bench, got stitches put in, and was right back out there on the ice during the same game. What would happen if that would have been another sport? Well, I think they would have sat out a few games. 

Enough with the tough guy comparison. 

Hockey is fun to watch and it is a rough sport. Do you notice how many times they knock each other down, smash each into the wall, and crosscheck each other? What is the common reaction when someone is knocked down? It is to retaliate. Sometimes its the player that gets knocked down that retaliates and sometimes their teammates take up for them. It happened last night in the 2nd period. A Preds player got knocked down and his teammates decided to take up for him and a little scuffle started. 

Off the ice, in our normal daily life, do we get frustrated with people and want to retaliate? I, personally, have become upset with people and wanted to retaliate. People cut us off in traffic, we get mad. Sometimes you wait in line at a restaurant for food and someone comes in and cuts in front of you and steals the last bowl of cheese dip, we get mad. We then want karma to get them. 

Romans 12:17 tells us that we should not repay evil with evil. Wait? So, we don’t need to retaliate or get even? Instead, we are to bless those who persecute us (Romans 12:14). Love our enemies and treat them well even when they do not treat us very good (Matthew 5:38-43).

It is very hard to do when someone upsets you or does something to hurt you but it is commanded for us to love our enemies. If we overcome evil with good, we can make friends of our enemies. 

Jesus was the perfect example of this. He was beaten and hung on a cross. When He returned, did He go after the ones who beat Him and hung Him on the cross? Of course not, He continued to show love to all. 

If you have had someone do something to you that has caused you to want to retaliate, remember what Jesus says. Love our enemies, do not repay evil with evil, and bless those who persecute us. God will reward us for our positive actions. You also never know if those positive things will impact the other person and bring them to Christ as well. 

God is Good…