"He hit back first..."

I have 5 brothers, most of us several years apart. When we were growing up, our mom taught us many valuable lessons like "It's ok to change lanes in front of someone else, just don't slow them down" and "It's all in the genes... and keep it there." One lesson that was very important to a house full of boys was "don't hit back." Hitting back would escalate rather than diffuse what could arguably be called an already tense situation. So when my younger brother and I got caught fighting one day, it was very important to me that mom knew that it was my brother that hit back first.

Even as an adult, "hitting back" (not so much physically as emotionally) is a reflex that I have had to resist and overcome throughout my life. When a boxer trains, one thing he conditions his body to do is something called a "counter-punch." That's what happens when they get hit, and their body automatically punches back; a reflex without thought. The conditioning becomes second nature and the counter-punch can give a pugilist a chance to escape a losing situation. Even though we may not hit with our hands, our words are just as effective at emotionally punching someone right in the heart. When someone has hurt us, our natural tendency is to want to hurt them back. This unfortunate tendency can fester and grow just like the conditioning a boxer goes through until forgiveness is just a word that has little meaning, and even less relevance. When allowed to become part of our lives, the "emotional counter-punch" can see an emotional hurt coming a mile away, even when one doesn't actually exist. When this happens almost anything the person that hurt you says or does can be misinterpreted as an attack and illicit a preemptive counter-punch that will ensure no progress towards emotional healing can be made.

The Bible is full of teaching on "turn the other cheek" and "do unto others" and one of my personal favorites is Proverbs 25:21-22 "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee." (KJV)

I had a friend in high school that was an outspoken Pentacostal who suffered as much from his "anti-heathen" attitude as he did for the Gospel. The other kids used to tease and make fun of him relentlessly. One day he told me that he prayed for his enemies because that puts heaps of burning coals of fire on their heads. One could tell from his attitude and the way he said it that he was thinking that those heaping piles of burning coals might actually start the burning of Hell a little early for his antagonists. This interpretation of Scripture is not much of a stretch for those that read only the King James translation of the bible. We had just had some teaching on this in youth group and I was able to explain a little background to that verse. 

Burning coals on the head is a reference to a cultural practice that we no longer have in our society. At night in the holy land and surrounding desert, temperatures can dip below freezing and travelers who had to traverse the distance between cities on foot were in danger of exposure to these low temps. There was a metal pan, like a flat brasier one could wear on one's head, wrapped in a turban-like garment that held coals it would warm a traveler and protect them from perilously low temperatures, preserving their lives. 

I like the way The Message explains it in Romans 12:20 "Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he's thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness." When I shared that with my Pentacostal friend he seemed crestfallen at the prospect of having to be nice to those who who persecuted him and not seeing them burst into flames of perdition. I don't know how successful he was after high school, but I hope he was able to trade in his flaming coals of revenge for the warming coals of life.

Have you ever offered Good for Evil?