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Have you ever been slapped so hard that you can literarily hear the alarm bells ringing through your medulla; your eyes turned red, the side of the ears was blocked and your cheeks were contracting and literarily turning numb? Guess what our Lord Jesus Christ told us to do in this situation? I am sure you all know the answer; well, if you don’t know, he told us to turn the other cheek. Jesus Christ definitely has a sense of humor.

 

Rewind to high school days in Federal Government College, Ijanikin; I was referred to as a “bad boy”; I jumped fence to parties, sell stolen forex or gold jewelries for guys that stole from their parents, miss 80% of the classes, visited Okoko for unusual activities, sort junior students, stand up against senior students but there was one thing that stood tall amongst these activities; I can never allow someone (especially a fellow student) to slap me and get away with it – it’s definitely not possible.

 

 

So during my undergraduate days in Ife when I accepted Jesus as my lord and personal savior; this Jesus statement of “turning the other cheek” never made sense to me until now. So you can imagine that for 12 years I have walked with Christ, I never believed in the practical application of this statement. From my high school experience, I have witnessed firsthand the consequences of the responses from being slapped except the “turning the other cheek” because nobody has ever done it.

 

There are three responses to being slapped; the first one reminded me of this Kenny Roger’s “coward of the county”song; you simply walk away when you are being slapped. Most people believe this is quite an honorable thing to do but Jesus never asked us to walk away. What you have simply done is to give more power to the person that slapped you; there is a 100% chance that he would slap you again and not feel bad about it. In this scenario, the oppressed and the oppressor are both to blame. Just like Kenny Roger’s song, you would eventually have to fight one day.

 

The second response does not appear honorable but it is definitely better than the first. When someone slaps you, you slap the person back. The worst thing that would happen is that you would end up in a physical fight and he would win you. If you do not show fear after he wins, he would never slap you again because he knows that you would always stand up to him. A fighter even if he is a loser would always be respected than a perceived coward.

 

 See those birds above giving thanks to God after undergoing a terrible weather. The final response is like that; this response does not instill fear like the second response but it commands respect and influences the oppressor. Let me use this story to illustrate my point: The widow of Zarephath was cooking her last meal and waiting to die before Elijah appeared asking her to give him the last meal. The economic situation was dire and not the fault of the widow; that was a huge slap but she did not respond by slapping back or walking away; she took the high unusual way by giving her last meal to a stranger she hardly knew.

 

 

This is an apparent difficult route that this woman took but this was what Jesus was talking about; turning the other cheek simply means viewing the same thing from a different perspective. If your job was taken from you, it’s now time to start giving out jobs; if the business deal brought you a lot of loss and did not work out the way you planned it, it’s time to plan it in a different way; if things are tight for you, it’s time to tithe more; if your boss is giving you stress, it’s time to praise the Lord for placing him there; if your wife is nagging you, just show her more love.

 

The night period of your life reveals your strength. People are not going to be influenced by you because you are going through things, people are going to respect you based on how you react to the tragedies of your life. Mandela is one of the most respected men in the world because despite being jailed unjustly, he had no resentment or anger towards his oppressors instead he went further to vie for the presidency of the country and won it.

 

This is the difference between walking away and turning the other cheek; you do not only accept the slap but you show the person that slapped you a better way to go about it. When life gives you a slap, it’s time to turn the other cheek because that is where your breakthrough lies. All breakthrough stems from sowing during difficult times because this is when all your faculties (body, mind, heart, spirit) are aligned to ensure a targeted harvest.  

 

When the adversities if life hit you, it’s time to give more to life; you cannot do anything about the birds that fly over your head or the sun coming down but you can sure do something about the response. The widow of Zaraphath thought that was her last meal before she died just like most of you believe that if that job goes, you would be finished or if you walk out of that abusive relationship, you would no longer have a crutch to hold on to. Kindly turn the other cheek like the widow did and you would be shocked at what the Lord would do.

 

 

You may listen to Kenny Roger’s song “Coward of the County” below (just play and allow it to load/buffer for 30 secs)  and have a lovely end of week.

 

coward of the county mp3 | lyrics