A soldier made it his practice to end each day with a Bible reading and prayer.  As the other soldiers gathered in the barracks and retired for the night, he would kneel by his bunk.  Some of the soldiers saw this and began to mock him.  But one night the abuse went beyond words.  As he bowed in prayer, one soldier threw his boots at him and hit him in the face.  The others jeered, looking for a fight, but there was no retaliation.  Next morning when the boot thrower woke up, he couldn’t believe what he saw.  There at the foot of his bed were his boots, polished and returned.  Imagine shining the boots that kick you.  That calls for a new level of grace.  It means deciding what your response will be before the offence occurs.  Some of the soldiers in the barracks were ‘leaders’ motivated by pride and insensitivity.  That’s how darkness responds to light.  Others were ‘followers’; they weren’t necessarily bad, just weak and afraid to be different. 

Why did Jesus pray from the cross, ‘Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do’?  Because He understood that people who have been raised a particular way, who are driven by certain forces, who wrestle with unresolved issues and fears, who are programmed with an unregenerate mindset, need God. And He saw it as an opportunity to display God.  This requires more than Sunday-go-to-meeting religion.  It calls for a Christ-like, example-setting, love-displaying response that makes others sit up and take notice.  Our ‘rights’ and our wounded egos are not the issue; the One we represent is.

Taken from ‘The Word for Today’, written by Bob Gass

Jack Cawley,

Diocesan Director, Wrexham