Daily Devotional: January 14th, 2020

Doing Your Part to DEfuse You

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

James 1:19-20

The struggle with anger is something that most people encounter at least once in their lives, and some deal with it on a daily basis. Some individuals handle their anger in an unacceptable manner, causing fallout that can emotionally, and sometimes physically cause harm to someone. Living with that anger causes hurt to yourself to and can take a toll on your emotional and spiritual well-being.

The truth to this is that you can ask God for help, but ultimately you yourself have the final control over your feelings and your acceptance of a different reaction to situations.

Anger can consume you, but you don’t have to let it defeat you. God can do great things and provide us guidance, but we ultimately have to bring our burdens to Him and be willing to listen to what is needed to change our perspective on our reactions.

Reflection

Spend a few minutes when you get angry focused on cooling off rather than rushing into a situation and allow your emotions to dictate your reaction. Take a moment to pray to God, lay the feelings of anger at His feet and ask for help to answer the event with love. Take a walk to cool off or take a few minutes in deep prayer to readjust your feelings, once you have that moment identify how to respond in love.