Many of you have seen the movie “Invictus”, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon; the story of how the South African rugby team won the world cup in their home country during the period of time when Nelson Mandela was serving as President. It is a moving, inspiring movie; one that I think Morgan was born to star in. I finally got around to seeing it this past week.

A quick history lesson. In 1962 Mandela was convicted of sabotage (among other things) for protesting white discrimination of the blacks and was sentenced to life in prison. He served 27 years before being finally released in 1990. He led his party in the negotiations that led to multi-racial democracy in 1994 and served as President till 1999.

His support for the almost all white rugby team, the Springboks, took his fellow blacks by surprise. Their leader, who had been imprisoned by the whites for so many years, was now supporting this team who represented everything that they hated. While the whole world watched, Mandela presented the winning trophy to the captain of the Springboks.

Not many of us have suffered the kinds of discrimination and abuse that Mandela did, but ‘life happens’ to us none-the-less. And sometimes it happens to us at the hands of others who do us harm, either purposely or inadvertently. It is at these times that we get to choose; will we strike out and get revenge against ___________ (you fill in the blank here) who has treated us so or will we find a way to bring reconciliation back into our relationship? Will we tell everyone around us what a dirty, rotten scoundrel they have been or do our best to ‘cover their sin’?

We show a lot of leadership and example, whether it is at home, in the community or in the workplace, when we reach out and extend grace to those around us…whether they deserve it or not.