Thursday; January 14

One of the most loved stories from Jesus’ life comes from John 8. When Jesus was teaching in the temple, a group of Jewish scribes and Pharisees brought an adulterous woman to Him. They declared they had caught her red-handed in her sin, and were inquiring of Him how He thought they should deal with her. John is pretty blunt about the fact that they weren’t seeking His wisdom, they were merely trying to get Jesus to do or say something that could be used against Him. Eventually, Jesus would issue those now famous words, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (verse 7); yet it is something in verse 6 that astounds me. As they were pestering Jesus for an answer, John notes, “They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.”. Here His adversaries are trying to trick Him by pressuring Him for an answer and He draws on the ground? The more I have thought about this event, the more impressed I am with Jesus’ composure. He knew what was up and He wasn’t going to get sucked into their ploy. I don’t know that Jesus actually needed time to contemplate His response, but He provides us with an example of what to do when we need to display wisdom – take the time to reflect and be deliberate. Don’t let someone else dictate your timeline – take all the time you need to come up with the right response.

It is awful challenging to want to be the one with the first answer, but for leaders it is more important to come up with the correct response. Let’s take the extra time to get it right the first time.
Think About It!

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