When Your Rival Wants You to Win

At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Jesse Owens was in trouble. The American sprinter had fouled on his first two long jump attempts in qualifying. One more foul and he was finished — no finals, no medal, no answer to a regime that insisted on his inferiority.

Then something unexpected happened. Luz Long, the German long jumper — the very man the Nazi propaganda machine expected to prove Aryan supremacy — walked over and offered advice. He suggested Owens adjust his takeoff mark several inches before the foul line, giving himself room for a clean jump. Owens took the counsel, qualified on his final attempt, and went on to win gold. Long earned silver.

But here is the moment that still echoes ninety years later. After the final jump, Luz Long was the first to congratulate Owens. In full view of Adolf Hitler and a hundred thousand spectators, the German athlete embraced his Black American rival and walked with him before the crowd.

That is what grace looks like. Grace does not calculate what it stands to lose. Grace crosses every line the world draws between people and says, "I want you to succeed."

Paul wrote in Romans that while we were still enemies, God moved toward us through Christ. The Almighty did not wait for us to earn it or deserve it. Like Long walking toward Owens when everything in that stadium said he shouldn't, God walks toward us — not as a rival, but as a rescuer. And that changes everything.