Photo Source: www.creationswap.com by Andrew Kerr
Have you ever been asked to help a friend out, or a friend of a friend who needs help moving, and as you pull up in the parking lot you get a text from your friend who says he can’t make it after all, but you go up anyway, even though you’re the only one that came to help, and they live on the third floor of an apartment building, and their couch transforms into a Hummer, and it takes three hours longer than you’d thought? That’s going the second mile.
In Matthew chapter 5 Jesus tells his disciples that if someone slaps you on one cheek, don’t resist them but turn the other cheek for them to slap that one as well. Don’t repay evil for evil, he says. And if someone compels you to go one mile with them, you should go a second mile without being asked.
Part of how we show the love of God is by being there when others aren’t. It’s reaching out and stopping for “the one.” It’s helping those that can’t help themselves. While it’s not letting people take advantage of you (Jesus speaks elsewhere about how we need to be wise) it’s about showing them that we are different because God’s ways are different from the world’s ways.
My wife and I use “second mile” as a code word to encourage each other when we find ourselves in a situation where it takes an extra effort to do the right thing. We use it as a shorthand way to remind ourselves to walk as Jesus walked. To say, yes, when we want to say, no.
Practice can make the unnatural become natural as we change our behavior and thought patterns. We must be the ones who are transformed. We must renew our mind, and our actions will follow. It’s always difficult to lay down your life for others. But it’s what Jesus did, and it’s what he calls us to as well.