Tuesday, September 17, 2013
James 1:19 So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath ...
MEET THE CHILD OF GOD: BORN FOR KINDLY PATIENCE INSTEAD OF RASH ANGER
To represent your heavenly Father you need to know His likes and dislikes, and what His actions are. Being dedicated to God involves the idea of patience instead of anger. So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath (James 1:19). How often we do just the exact opposite! We react in anger without even thinking. We interrupt people instead of listening to what they're telling us just so that we can get our point in. We often blow our stack and stomp away rather than resolving the problem.
We need to listen. We need to understand what others are communicating to us because only then can we help them or be helped ourselves. If we are known to have a short fuse, people will shy away from talking with us, and we need to be able to communicate with people. We need to be effective because we are children of God trying to bring across His word of truth. There can be times of anger. We are upset about sin like our Father, but we want to follow His example of patience and use our two ears and one mouth in the proportion that God gave us.
If we do let our anger control us, and are not slow to speak, and do not like to listen, then the results are very detrimental. We will ruin relationships. For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1:20). Just think about a friendship or the relationship between parents and children or husband and wife. If we are hot-tempered and shoot off at the mouth, we are going to pit people against us.
We look to the heavenly Father for the example here. He has been so very patient with us. Think of the times of repeated sin. Think of the times that we have been ignorant of God's commands, or knew them and ignored them. Yet He says, "I'll work with you. I'll help you. I have forgiven you. Let's move forward." Look through the Bible and your personal life and you will find that patience is hallmark of our Father. He has a breaking point. Don't mistake His patience for not caring about sins. But all in all He is infinitely more patient than we are -- with the goal of maintaining His relationship with us. That goal of maintaining relationships should be ours as well.
