Daily
Devotional

In a physical education course, our class divided up for a scrub football game. Being tall and thin, I was no candidate for a football team, much less a lineman, which is where I ended up. I do not know why, but before the game started, the coach told an all-conference tackle to hit me hard. The ball was hiked and I traversed the field with the tackle chasing me, and as one would expect, I was soon picking myself up from the ground. His rough playing seemed excessive and unfair; however, I put the incident behind me.  

During the spring of the next year, we started playing softball. In one of our most important games, I again found myself on a team playing against the all-conference tackle. He came up to bat with the bases loaded and two outs. A hit would win the game for them, or he would be the final out and we would win. I was in the outfield, and as the pitcher threw the ball, he took a hefty swing and hit the ball my direction. Running back, I leaped as high as I could and caught the ball barehanded—we won! From then on, that tackle seemed to have a respect for me that he had never had before.

After the football game, when I was feeling frustrated for being so harshly tackled, I could have easily let my pride get the best of me and tried to get back at my opponent. But that was surely not what the Lord wanted me to do. By not acting on my desire for revenge, I allowed the Lord to have His perfect way. In the end, it is clear that the Lord’s way was far better than my way, as my enemy almost certainly would not have ended up respecting me if I had tried to take revenge myself.

Some people say they don’t get mad, they just get even. However, a Christian really does not have to retaliate. God emphatically says to avenge not ourselves, for “vengeance in mine; I will repay.”