I'd like to share something out of the book : The Love Dare
It's been a while since I read this, but I wanted to focus on anger, and how it destroys our relationships. Although I know this is refering to our spouses, it also has great use for all our relationships.
Love will inspire you to become a patient person. When you choose to be patient, you respond in a positive way to a negative situation. You are slow to anger. You have a long fuse instead of a quick temper. Rather than being restless and demanding, love helps you settle down and begin extending mercy to those around you. Patience brings an internal calm during an external storm.
No one likes to be around an impatient person. It causes you to overreact in angry, foolish, and regrettable ways. The irony of anger toward a wrongful action is that it spawns new wrongs of its own. Anger almost never makes things better. In fact, it usually generates additional problems. But patience stops problems in their tracks. More than biting your lip, more than clapping a hand over your mouth, patience is a deep breath. It clears the air. It stops foolishness from whipping its scorpion tail all over the room. It is a choice to control your emotions rather than allowing your emotions to control you, and shows discretion instead of returning evil for evil.
If your spouse offends you, do you quickly retaliate or stay under control? Do you find that anger is your emotional default when treated unfairly? If so, you are spreading poison rather than medicine.
Anger is usually caused when the strong desire for something is mixed with disappointment or grief. You don't get what you want and you start heating up inside. It is often an emotional reaction that flows out of our own selfishness, foolishness, or evil motives.
Patience, however, makes us wise. It doesn't rush to judgment but listens to what the other person is saying. Patience stands in the doorway where anger is clawing to burst in, but waits to see the whole picture before passing judgment. The Bible says, "He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is quick-tempered exalts folly" (Proverbs 14:29).
As sure as a lack of patience will turn your home into a war zone, the practice of patience will foster peace and quiet. "A hot- tempered man stirs up strife, but the slow to anger calms a dispute" (Proverbs 15:18). Statements like these from the book of Proverbs are clear principles with timeless relevance. Patience is where love meets wisdom. And every marriage needs that combination to stay healthy.
Patience helps you give your spouse permission to be human. It understands that everyone fails. When a mistake is made, it chooses to give them more time than they deserve to correct it. It gives you the ability to hold on during the tough times in your relationship rather than bailing out under the pressure.
But can your spouse count on having a patient wife or husband to deal with? Can she know that locking her keys in the car will be met by your understanding rather than a demeaning lecture that makes her feel like a child? Can he know that cheering during the last seconds of a football game won't invite a loud-mouthed laundry list of ways he should be spending his time? It turns out that few people are as hard to live with as an impatient person.
What would the tone and volume of your home be like if you tried this biblical approach: "See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another"? (1 Thessalonians 5:15).
Few of us do patience very well, and none of us do it naturally.
Have you been fast in responding to others with harsh words, or actions? Have you noticed your fuse is too short these days? Not only can anger destroy our relationships with others, and self, but it can destroy our witness to others. Anger is an emotion in which we have a choice to control, or not control. There is nothing wrong with anger. However, the way we act upon anger is a pretty good indicator of our relationship with our Heavenly Father.
Heavenly Father,
Forgive us of our poor choices when it comes to acting out in anger. Provide us the peace and comfort to be calm, patient, and slow to anger. Help our relationships be built on love, and the rock of Christ. For it is in Jesus name, I ask and pray these things, Amen.
God Bless,
David B.
