The High Road

Boy oh boy, me and some of my fellas' were playing some basketball one weekend not that long ago, and it happened. We got tried...! Yeah, this dude came out of no where and joined our game in a three-on-three match up. So, we went along with it and went to hooping on the b-ball court.

The main problem occurred when 'that dude' started mouthing off like he was grand. Not only that, he began to direct much of the verbiage to me. Despite my size and calmness, it doesn't take too much to rile me up (something God is working on me deeply). Hey, I started mouthing off back at him. As a grown man, I'm not with the bullying. At the moment of things nearing an escalating stage, something happened!

We brought focus back to the basketball game at hand and off of the jerk causing all the ruckus. In other words, we took the high road. The high road is a road less traveled by many and it's sort of similar to the narrow road in Matthew 7:13-14. To be honest, we were on the verge of making a stupid decision and thankfully God brought us back to our senses. We have to be ever cognoscente of the fact that, as Christians, we're "born again---new creations" and the old us has passed away. In other words, we have a new nature that we should be working on implementing and shouldn't be so enticed to revert back to our old nature.

After the basketball incident, we conversed about how the dude was itching for a fight at any cost. He wanted to fight even if he was going to lose. He didn't care. A friend of mine denoted that this individual was being influenced by demons. Also, we became vaguely aware that the situation could have ended up with us getting shot or worse (physically dying)---all over a basketball game. In hindsight, I became more aware of the truth that "hurting people seek to hurt people." See, this individual could have been having a bad day, and it's no telling what kind of devastating issues had just transpired in his life. God noted that the POWER OF LOVE is the greatest healer. It can heal every hurt! Love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).

The unfortunate thing is that I was reluctant to show love but was more concerned with standing my ground. More important, I know that I'm NOT ALONE in thinking like that. Most men are taught to be macho instead of loving. I know we have always heard the saying, "I'm a lover not a fighter." Many of us should take this more to heart.