Lost Tempers

Sometimes I look at my words and behaviors and I find they do not match my heart. What's up with that? I think I know ---- it's sin on my part. Oh yes, I am a sinner. In fact, the older I get, the more I realize my desperate need for a Savior. Anyway, back to this problem I have had with my tongue. You see, I've found myself in difficult conflicts and in an effort to resolve the conflict, both parties just keep talking and the tempers begin to heat up. Things get said that really have no value or even have negative value in the overall scheme of the relationships. What a terrible tragedy this is when it happens!

Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls. --Proverbs 25:28

Some people have a temper. We blame it on our Irish grandfather or on something else; but it's really just another place of sin --- from which we need to be saved.

I heard about a man who had a very high spiritual testimony and became a leading pastor in his denomination. One night at a board meeting, he lost his temper, he didn't have credibility with those men. He lost his influence because they no longer believed he was relevant. (Now that I think about it, those national televangelists who embarrass Christians usually do so when they are fighting over something that they care deeply about!)

Another occasion I've heard about was a fine Christian who had a new car and somebody came along and dented his fender. He blew up over it it, and people who watched it never believed in his witness for Christ again. Any sin can do that, really. Look at Ted Haggard. How many people are questioning his testimony for Christ right now? How many people have decided that he's not credible?

Whenever I see a man blow his top, I never believe in that man unless I know he has gone to the Fountain that cleanses and gotten delivered. No man has any more right to go around with an uncleaned temper than he has to hold a rattlesnake in his jacket pocket. He has no more right to do that than he has to leave untreated a cancer on his tongue, because it will destroy his ministry.

Well, I have to confess that I've been one of those men. I've gotten angry in dialogue over some things that I cared passionately about. Usually the price I've had to pay wasn't worth it though. You see, I lost influence and credibility with people I cared about in the process. Now of course I know I've been to the Fountain and been cleansed and delivered --- I don't do such things any more. Can I go back and tell those people of that cleansing? Would they believe me if I could?

I think our best policy is to work really hard to prevent the loss of tongue control in the first place. Damage control is much harder than damage prevention. Take it from one who had to learn that experientially!

"Lord, deliver me from any tendency to an uncontrolled temper. Keep me from the loss of credibility that can do irreparable harm to my ministry. Make me a pure vessel. Amen."