Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

"He that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls." (Proverbs 25:28) When a person loses his temper we say he/she "flew off the handle." This refers to the head of a hammer coming loose from its handle as the carpenter attempts to use it. When this happens, three things always follow: First, the hammer becomes useless. When you lose your temper, you lose your effectiveness. You lose respect, you lose control, and anything you say is usually unproductive. Second, the hammer head will hurt anything in its path. Our children can carry the scars of our anger with them until the day they die. We may not realize we inflicted scars, and may never have intended to, but angry words cause wounds, and become the pattern of abuse that our children pick up and use with their children. And this is applicable to the people we love as well. Hurting people hurt people. Anger has a long reach. Third, repairing the damage can take time. The person who loses his/her temper may recover quickly, but the one who is the victim of their anger rarely does. Anger is one letter short of danger!