January 11, 2011

Affirmation and Life Application From Scripture-Cool your pipes

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil. For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land. Psalm 37:8-9 (NIV) from BibleGateway

Affirmation-I really liked the way The Message bible translation put today’s text:

 Bridle your anger, trash your wrath, cool your pipes—it only makes things worse.   Before long the crooks will be bankrupt; God-investors will soon own the store.

I’ve seen and been directly involved in situations far too often when fire is met with return fire and all that leads to is a bigger flame that becomes much more difficult to extinguish.  Leadership expert and former pastor John Maxwell addressed that in The Maxwell Leadership Bible.

Maxwell is the author of “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership,” one of them being the Law of Intuition.  He uses this text to support two of his key points.  First, don’t get angry at opponents because it won’t bring the best results.  Boy, this is so true—how well do you think when you’re angry?  My IQ at that point is somewhere below moron.  Walking away and gathering perspective avoids making emotionally driven decisions and absolutely brings more constructive results.

Maxwell’s second point is even more important; trust the Lord to guide and use your decisions.  We remember that first part more often than the second.  What we do goes beyond the immediate and impacts other people and events—it’s a tiny piece of the overall mosaic God is weaving in our world.  When we aren’t acting out of anger, God can reap more positive benefit from our lives instead of having to do damage control of the consequences of emotional, knee-jerk reactions.

Application-Whenever possible, remove yourself from a person or situation that has pushed your buttons until you can reset and consider a constructive, not a destructive, response.

No comments:

Post a Comment