Remain Calm

Here's a picture of my beloved cat Spunky.  Those of you that knew him knew he was anything but calm, cool and collected.  It just wasn't his personality.  He had his moments though when he was calm.  As you can see in the pic those moments were usually when he was sleeping.

 

Now this blog post isn't really about pets or sleeping (I just like any excuse to put in a cute pet picture).  It is, however, about remaining calm.  You see, whether you want to admit it or not, each and every one of us is in a spiritual battle.  It's vitally important we remain calm in order to be effective warriors.

Imagine you're on God's football team and the opposing team is, you guessed it, the devil's.  You're eager to get out there and play but, frankly, you're a little out of shape. You go on a strict strengthening regimen.  You're making progress and gain some strength but try as you might you've still got weaknesses that can be exploited.

The coach (God) tries to reassure you that you're still a valuable member of the team - that training is a growth process.  He tries to give you wisdom -  to tell you that sometimes strategy is more important than braun. Sadly you don't hear a thing He says.  You're so frustrated and angry at your failure to get stronger that's all you can think about.

You'll go out on the field because you don't have a choice.  The game goes on.  But even though the clock hasn't started you've already been defeated.  Instead of learning how to compete against the other team - you've been competing against yourself.

We all have sins we struggle against.  Sometimes they're pretty easy to overcome.  Other times conquering them is a life-long process.  The devil knows our weaknesses.  He is relentless in his attacks.  If we remain calm in the battle, we'll be able to hear God's direction - His reassurance and His wisdom for overcoming our sin.  But if we get all riled up at the wrong thing (our failure) we lose sight of the main battle. 

The way I see it the devil gets two for the price of one.  He attacks us with our sin struggle and then gets a bonus of confidence bashing.  There are many instances in the Bible where God's chosen warriors could have lost it emotionally because they didn't have "Super Christian" strength.  David, Joshua and Gideon come immediately to mind. They weren't perfect or sinless and neither are you.

Take it easy on yourself.  Remember always that you're a work in progress.  Eventually you will overcome your battles or your strongholds. But you can't do it if you're busy being angry at yourself.  Remain calm.  Don't give the devil the satisfaction of getting you off your game.

The Trouble With Anger

I didn’t catch the news until late in the day yesterday.  When I did I heard the sad news of the bombings at the Boston Marathon.  Such senseless violence in my eyes.  Although I wonder if the person or persons who carried out this horrible act thought it was senseless.  Probably not.  Anger tends to have its roots in reason.  Sadly if given the opportunity anger can morph into something beyond reason and rationality.

It got me thinking – wondering how someone can have so much hate inside of them that it leads them to kill people who don’t have anything to do with the core of their hate.  Innocent victims.  Tell me that and eight year old child deserved their wrath or any of the victims for that matter.

As I thought more about this tragedy the reality is this: anger feeds anger and then gives birth to hatred.  Who of us hasn’t become angry?  Have you ever caught yourself hanging on to situations, having angry conversations with someone in your mind, or felt the need to share your anger with mutual friends.  There is something instinctive inside of us that wants to feed on the negativity - the poison.

 

For the vast majority of us, our anger may not get out of hand but it does take up valuable space in our hearts and minds.  A situation occurred recently that has me a little perturbed.  And yes, the human nature side of me wants desperately to be snide – to involve others in my annoyance.  But the Holy Spirit in me is telling me to let it go.  He’s telling me that by wanting others to be as annoyed or angry as I am, I would merely be feeding the anger.  I would be fanning the flame and creating a bigger problem (but misery loves company, right?).  In reality I would be doing the devil’s handy work.  

I admit, it gets hard to change the path my mind takes when I get angry.  But experience has taught me to redirect my thoughts – to turn away from the negative.  Praising God is a good method of redirection and reading His word is a good antidote for the disease.   We may have to fight human nature but I’m pretty sure that if more of us did – we’d have a lot fewer tragedies like what happened in Boston.  

Here is my take away:  Decide whether you want to be an angry person or not.  You can choose to feed on love or choose to feed on anger.  Only one of those has a good outcome.