6 Don’t let your mouth make a total sinner of you.
When called to account, you won’t get by with
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it.”
Why risk provoking God to angry retaliation?Ecclesiastes 5:6 (The Message)
The cycle was finally broken not long after I read that passage above. For years, while I could be a pleasant, calm person outside the home, I could be a difficult person in the home, prone to allowing my “mouth making a total sinner of me”. I would often allow little, inconsequential things slowly build up in anger inside of me, finally blowing up every so often in a volcanic release that was unpleasant to those around me.
The words that would come out would sting my loved ones. The volume with which the words would come out would be at a decibel level that would drown out any attempt to listen to the other side of the conversation…if you could call it “conversation”.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it” would be followed by “I won’t let it happen again.”
But happen again it did. Over…and over…and over…
God finally broke me. Rather than place folks who would commisserate with me, He placed people who listened but didn’t commisserate…rather, they asked the pointed question to which I had already known the answer, but never acted on…
“Did you ever seek His help, Andy?”
I knew that I had never sought God’s help with anger issues.
At that moment of realization, God broke me among a couple of Godly folks who would keep me accountable. With their prayers and with my own, I could feel the sense of release, the breaking of the bond of cyclical anger that had taken a hold of my life from a young age, a cycle I did not see until I threw myself at Jesus’ feet asking for redemption.
That is not to say I don’t get angry…far from it. But I have now begun to see how God is working inside me to release my anger before it is verbalized, and I can feel that anger dissipate as He reminds me to see my loved ones with His Eyes, that often that which gets me angry are merely distractions to keep my eyes off Jesus and on my own selfishness.
It will continue to be a long road, but I am thankful daily that Jesus continues to work in me, making me every more aware of my need to hold on to Him every second of every day.
There are many things in our lives which require God’s intervention. The problem, of course, is a) realizing the need for His intervention and then b) actually allowing it.
Thanks for the reminder.
Cheers.
Its funny how God breaks us and breaks us and breaks us. But, to quote a famous philosopher of the 20th Century, Erosion is Neato.
For you it is anger. For me it was patience. God continually bashed me over the head with the need for patience and usually caused me unnecessary grief and frustration when I didn’t learn the latest lesson. I’d like to say that I am completely cured of it by now, that I am a patient man, but I’ve learned that those particular character flaws that we hold on to most dearly take the longest to break.
Let the whittling continue, my friend, and God will be gracious in the end.
Thanks guys. Indeed, He keeps swinging that holy 2×4, usually with one to the gut, followed by an uppercut to the jaw.
Accolades to you for taking the responsibility for your anger. This is an area my dad has had a problem with and never has dealt with sufficiently, and it has hurt his loved ones. I wish you could pass this on to him! God bless you!
I can understand how seeing yourself on video tape could cause such an epiphany, by the way.
Cheers.
Randall…sorry it’s taken me a couple of days to get to this…I’ve simply been a bit busy…
Wow.
That’s freakin’ hilarious.
And scary.
And so NOT me, thankfully.
Was that a laptop he threw down? Love the tackle by security.
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