Sometimes you push your body to the limits and the next thing you know you’ve lost all ability to stay up at night. Such was the case with me yesterday. I did read in Exodus and it was interesting, but I decided to go back to the New Testament for today’s post, and wow did God deliver me to a section I needed today!
First, a little background on me. I’m from two parents who are so different in their personalities that their 30+ year marriage proves opposites must attract. My mom is the more quick tempered parent, and my dad is pretty much even temper. That’s not to say that at various times in my life I’ve not seen mom hold her tongue, or dad blow up a little, I’m just saying in general. Since I’ve got DNA from both of them coursing through my body, I’ve got some combination of both. In some situations I do very well at holding my tongue whereas others I blow right up.
Today was one of those days where I ended up being on both sides of that fence. I work in an environment where you have to be a little hard, and a lot thick skinned. I’ve been having some trouble with one of the employees of a contractor I’m working with. He seemed to just not want to do the things we asked, seemingly preferring to give us reasons that our rules were unnecessary. Well, today I’d had enough. We asked him to take care of something and when he didn’t agree to do it immediately, I got a little testy and snapped. I didn’t really yell, and I didn’t curse, but my tone of voice was definitely firm, and I was definitely quick to snap back at him. He immediately went to take care of it. I was a little proud to be honest, at first at least.
As the day progressed, another employee of that contractor had issue with how I was doing my job. During a conversation, he began to yell at me. This time I did raise my voice somewhat, but not to the level he did. I was so taken aback at his tone, attitude, and untrue accusations, that I didn’t know what to do. I went to a coworker who is older and more experienced in things like this, and told him what happened and that I didn’t know what to do. He set up a meeting with our project manager, two representatives from the other company, himself, and me. After about 20 minutes of discussion we all walked out satisfied and I believe the problem will not surface again. It was a tense situation, to say the least.
Upon leaving that meeting my coworker took me to the side to give me some coaching, or advice. He mentioned the situation from earlier in the day with the first employee I mentioned. He told me that I could have handled that a bit better. He pointed out those same things I had been proud of, and it made me realize how wrong I was.
Some of you are wondering what this has to do with today’s reading? What’s this section that God sent you to? Well when I picked up my iPad to read tonight, I thought “I want to read something from the New Testament, James.” When I opened the app, I tapped James and decided on chapter three. Chapter three popped up on my screen and immediately I see the heading for the first part of the chapter “Taming the Tongue”. It’s like God said “Hey, look here, I have something for you.” When God says that, listen!
The chapter starts off by pointing out that not all believers should be teachers because teachers are judged more strictly. As a former youth pastor who still feels the call to ministry, who went through a day like today, that hit me hard. The chapter goes on to talk about how powerful the tongue is by talking about how different small things guide bigger things (bit in horse’s mouth, rudder on a ship). Without giving a whole retelling of the section, it basically points out that the tongue is powerful, and guides us. It also states that we should not let praise and cursing come out of the same mouth. Some may take that to be profanity, but I think cursing goes further than that. Hurtful phrases that have no profanity can be a curse just as bad as a profane phrase. I would imagine we’ve all done that.
The next section was on wisdom. It’s a short, but very powerful portion of this chapter. In it, the author discusses two kinds of wisdom; wisdom from heaven, and “wisdom” from selfish ambition. In verses 14 and 15 it says “But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.” Wow! How many times have I done things with selfish ambitions? How many times has pride gotten in the way? How often have I thought I was wise and right about something only to find that I was foolishly wrong? I KNOW that at times I’ve fallen trap to this. I would much rather live like verse 17 “But the wisdom the comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.”
As I look back on my day today I see opportunities I could have had heavenly wisdom when I really had earthly “wisdom”. I’m glad to say that after conversations with each of the two men I spoke about earlier, we’ve moved forward. With the one who yelled at me, he didn’t so much apologize as he did talk to me in a different manner and somewhat make apologies for his attitude. The second (the one I snapped at) actually apologized to me for not responding as I had expected at first. His apology prompted my own, and we spoke for at least 30 more minutes in a decent work related conversation. I’ve been in situations in the past where I know I embarrassed myself by yelling, etc. I’m glad that today I didn’t get to that level, but I was reminded how close I came. These verses tonight came at just the right time to help me avoid that in the future. I’m so thankful for that.
All scripture quoted was from the NIV.
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