Getting a Drink

The night before a football game, our team has a gathering at the house of one of the seniors. His parents supply the food, and we have had these team dinners since before I can remember.

Now, many schools have a lot of hazing rituals that they carry out on their freshman. The only thing we require our freshman to do is to refill our drinks at the team dinners. Most of the time upperclassmen will fill them up themselves anyway, just in the interest of time. Tonight, however, when I ran out of Gatorade, I carried out a very selfish act. A certain freshman, who had talked badly about me and given me hard time when I missed a tackle, was sitting right behind me. I thought I had a chance to get even, so I asked him to fill up my cup. Knowing he would have some smart remark to make, when I gave the cup to him I said, “Go ahead, I know you are going to spit in it.” Sure enough, he did. Once that happened, all I could think about was how badly I wanted to hit him, pin him down or just make him sorry for what he’d done. I left in a horrible mood.

On the way home, the song “Like Christ” by Flame came up on my mp3 player. It took a moment for me to realize it, but I knew that’s what I needed to do. I had to be like Christ. Think of all of the people who spit on Him and cursed Him on the march to His death. All He had to say was, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

We all can agree that it’s hard to live a Christian life when those around you aren’t. But that’s another thing that we are missing. Jesus told us to spread His Word. Tomorrow, I’m going to make it a priority to put a piece of God’s Word into that freshman’s head, and I pray that it will reach his heart.