Tuesday; April 28
One of my favorite verses
is James 1:19-20, “This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone
must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to
anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of
God.”. When we are looking for a life
lesson on how to get along with people, here we go.
Recently, when I was
reconsidering this passage, a couple observations came to mind. First, did you notice that James almost seems
to refer to this as a firm grasp of the obvious? He didn’t offer them anything groundbreaking;
in fact, he prefaced the statement with “this you know …”. These principles of humanity shouldn’t
surprise any of us! Yet, the other
observation is almost as insightful – why in the world do we still have trouble
following these guidelines?
Understanding them isn’t rocket science and we teach them to children,
so why haven’t we mastered them? I don’t
think the problem is that we don’t understand them, the issue is that we just don’t
think about them. We know what we should
do, we just don’t stop and consciously put them into practice.
Like most other simple
principles of life, we must be purposeful in doing them. When ignorance isn’t an excuse,
intentionality must be a priority. Are
our interactions with people what they should be? If not, let’s not set out to learn something
new, let’s just be intentional in doing something different.
Think About It!