LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, May 14, 2024
In the 22nd – 24th chapters of Proverbs King Solomon gives his students a look at thirty basic pieces of wisdom to build a life upon. Within them are six specific instructions on relationship issues. Let’s dig in and discover how to build better relationships.
The first one is found in Proverbs 22:24-25.
“Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared.”
This sounds pretty straightforward for us, right? Avoid people who are quick-tempered. We are already thinking about the people that fit this description. That’s the easy part. But we must consider the possibility that we might be the person that someone else is thinking about avoiding. I know, that’s a remote possibility, and they really don’t know us very well if they are, but let’s consider it anyway.
Let’s use a measuring scale of one to ten. Number one describes a person who is “in control” as we read in Proverbs 29:1. “A wise man keeps himself under control”. Emotions do not dictate actions.
On the other end of the scale is the ten. They are the hot-tempered person of Proverbs 29:11. “A fool gives full vent to his anger”. They vent anger easily and even explosively.
Now, where would we rate ourselves on that scale? After you rate your anger level, consider this: anyone who is rated lower on the scale may consider you the person to avoid. The challenge is for each one of us to evaluate our own lives and relationships by looking at ourselves first, and then at others.
Let’s also clarify that anger in itself is not a sin; it is an emotion. But how it is expressed can be sinful. Maybe the sinful expression of anger is not a problem for us. Make sure that others are the ones telling us that it is not a problem and that it is not a self-imposed justification of our attitudes and actions.
Or maybe the problem for us is the stirring up of anger in others. Proverbs 30:33 says, “For as churning the milk produces butter, and as twisting the nose produces blood, so stirring up anger produces strife.” People may be avoiding you because you tend to cause them strife. Let’s look at ourselves carefully in this area as well.
Solomon then tells us why we should avoid people who are hot-tempered – because it is contagious. Angry people drag us down. Bitter people discourage us. When we are around people with chips on their shoulders, we become comfortable wearing our chips. Some people just have a terrible attitude towards life. Everything is wrong with it, and they gain some sort of satisfaction in always expressing their dissatisfaction with everyone and everything. They tend to believe that life owes them something. People like this are a real bummer to our faith. They are joy stealers. We must realize the potential for the contagious disease of sinful anger to be transmitted to us through people who do not live by faith in God alone.
Now be careful before you withdraw totally from them. Someone has to help them come to faith in Jesus Christ, and that may be you or me. The wisdom here is to not get intimate with them in any way until they do. You can allow the influence of self-control to flow into them, rather than allow the influence of sinful anger to flow from them into you. Proverbs 29:8 says – “Mockers stir up a city, but wise men turn away anger.” Let’s apply this principle of wisdom to all of our relationships!
Pastor John
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