I love the rain

I read Matthew 5:38-42 today.

I wanted to share a recent experience with you.

The other day I decided to take a long walk in the rain. I like rain. I was walking through Castle Green when two men aged around 20ish approached me, walking in the same direction. They had been drinking and were loud and aggressive. I continued to walk and was not bothered by them. I stopped to read a poster and as they passed by they threatened me for no reason. Now I could have responded in a number of ways. But I said nothing and smiled at them. They continued to walk on and I didn’t have to warn them of my knowledge of origami and their lives were spared.

If I had the ‘eye for an eye’ attitude mentioned in the above bible verses then I would have matched their aggression with mine. But I chose to go with Jesus and the ‘Turn the other cheek’ attitude. Many people including myself have looked at these verses and thought ‘Turn the other cheek’ that’s for pansies. But actually it takes more courage and strength to turn the other cheek. As I have said before God looks at our heart, the motivation of our actions. God calls us to love people and this takes sacrifice.

I truly believe that we are here to serve people and not the other way round. When we look at life from this perspective it totally changes the way we act and treat people. In fact I will go as far as to say that it is more joyful to serve people than it is to take from people. Dont get me wrong I enjoy a good present every now and then. But seeing the look on someones face when I have given them a gift to me is priceless.

There will be people who come into your life that just want to take, take, take and they may never give you anything. Jesus tells us to be generous to these people, to give them our tunic, which is a coat by the way. How many of you have seen movies where the guy sees that the girl is cold and takes his coat and gives it to her to meet her need. Ahhhhh.

But it takes courage and guts to give someone the coat off your back when they have already taken us to court for everything we have.

We are called to serve people, we are called to be a generous people. Life would be so much better, society would be a different place if we thought about each other more than ourselves. I would go as far as to say that many people attribute blame to past and present wars on religion and God. I would attribute many of them to the selfishness of mankind and our ‘eye for an eye’ attitude and our selfish greed.

Lets listen to the words of Jesus, he led by example, he lived a life serving others and made the ultimate sacrifice – giving his life for others.

May God bless you and lead you into a life of serving others.