Fresh Manna 2009© by Pastor Renee Burt
This morning I had a funny thing happen. Well, it really wasn’t so funny at the time…but looking back in retrospect, it has its humorous elements. What happened was someone had said something to me that got under my skin…it begged for a response. But the problem was, I didn’t have anything very good to say back. Just so you know, I wasn’t thinking of saying anything mean or vindictive or retaliatory. Let’s just say, I wanted to speak the truth…but not necessarily in love, like we’re commanded to in the Bible. I felt a little angry, if you want to know the truth. So I decided to pen a note. That way I could cut, paste, delete, and rewrite until I could say what I wanted to say succinctly and to the point. But lo and behold, I was on a writing roll, and the words were coming far easier than I thought they would. Awesome! But the downside was that I noticed that the more I wrote, the angrier I felt. And rather than helping me unload my frustration, it was fueling it. I ignored the feeling and kept on writing.
I was just about done, when my finger must have hit some wrong key, and poof…the note was irretrievably deleted. I couldn’t believe it! I had written a perfect note…or had I? Was it going to produce anything good in the end? I paused, prayed, and the Lord basically told me that He had saved me from myself…and from making a bad situation worse. At first, I was bugged…but then I laughed…at how the Lord “works in mysterious ways,” as it says in Isaiah 45:15 NLT. And I’m so glad He does! Because our anger will never improve a relational schism, it will never really make a situation better, and angry words won’t bring about any of the goodness of God in your life or in the life of that other person. So don’t fight it when He’s trying to save YOU from yourself…and let’s slow down and allow Him to shape our words instead into something beautiful.
James 1:19-21 MSG ~ Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God's righteousness doesn't grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.
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