There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

I almost got into a fight. I was 11 years of age at the time and I made an off hand comment about a football team I didn’t like who were my local 1^st division rivals.

“Right! You Christie! Behind the huts at the end of the day!”

I won’t tell you which team as I might lose some of my audience. But needless to say, I was mortified especially when I found out that the boy who had threatened me to a fight was a training three times a week at the local boxing gym. He had an annoying face and to be honest I really wanted to punch him out, if I could get near him, but I knew that was not the Christian thing to do.

My face must have looked a sorry state as my friend Mahmood took me to one side.

“Ok, Rich this is what you need to do. He is left handed so if he tries to go for an upper cut, feint to the other direction and knock him out. However, he might just try to grab and grapple with you, in that case use you knees and try to wind him. Then again last time I saw him fight he waited for the other person to throw the fist punch, feinted to other way then clattered them. It was brutal. Oh yeah, if he tries to set you up with his jab…” And so continued my friend’s advice, as if he was trying to help me to visualise and anticipate each action and my possible reaction.

After school, I pretended to forget my bag in the classroom and after returning to collect it, I ran all the way home. My thinking was, he might be a great boxer but he’d have to catch me first and I knew he couldn’t run. For the next few days I ran from that fight until he finally collared me in language class, but by then all the fight had gone out of him and he just slapped me on the back on my head on the way to his seat.

You see, there is always a way out. I knew that I could out run my foe wannabe even though my friends thought I should stand and fight. All the visualising and trying to anticipate what might have been is of no avail, because people are unpredictable and that is not what God requires of us as Christians.

So today or this week, if you find yourself in a situation that you would rather not be in, remember, there is always another way.

Don Moen sings ‘God will make a way.’ Click on the picture to listen.