STOP and Think!

“Be still and know that I am God…”

Psalm 46:10a

He was one of my close friends in the Texarkana congregation.  He once taught me an important lesson in the midst of teaching his kids this lesson.  I witnessed a couple of occasions when one of this man’s teenagers was upset.  They were about to say something in anger or frustration.  Then their dad would hold up a hand.  “Stop,” he’d say.  “Stop and think before you speak.  Count to 10.  Do you really want to say this?  Are you taking this out on the right person?”

Stop and think!  That’s great advice.  It’s a lesson I have had to learn the hard way.  There were times in staff meetings, in one on one confrontation, in emails I have sent, in posts I have made to Facebook, when I haven’t stopped to think before I spoke or before I wrote.  Instead I spoke first, or wrote first before I thought.  Almost always things I have spoken in anger, or written in haste have simply made matters worse. 

Stop and think!  I find this to be especially good advice when it comes to emails or social media posts.  Emails are so easily misinterpreted.  There have been times when I have received emails that have seemed extremely inflammatory.  In anger I have immediately responded.  Such responses have led to email battles that were totally unnecessary.  Yes I have learned the hard way that the best thing to do when I receive such an email is to Stop and Think!  Put down the email.  Allow my first reaction to diminish for a couple of hours, maybe a day.  Then, come back to read it again, with a cooler head.  Often the best way to respond, if at all possible, is to go talk to the person face to face or to call on the phone.  That way I can ask questions, listen and seek to understand before I respond. 

Far too often on Facebook, especially in recent weeks, I have seen people writing things about other groups of people that are very unkind, even down right mean generalizations.  You know, when we write such generalizations about people, we may without meaning to be writing about someone we know who belongs to that larger group… someone we know isn’t like the people we just described.  Generalizations are almost never true.  I know how this feels. I have had friends who aren’t Christians write nasty things about Christians.  It hurts.  Perhaps I have made such posts about those who aren’t Christians.  I hope they don’t think such things about me, but I have to admit that when I read them, I want to get angry, to write a sharply worded response.  But then my friend’s words to his kids ring in my ears -   “Stop and think!”  I don’t want my response to do more harm to what other’s think about our faith and our savior.  Often I just don’t respond at all.

There is a Bible verse that comes to mind whenever I think about my friend’s advice to his kids.  It comes from Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God…”  The Lord here adds a little extra to my friend’s advice.  Stop and think and talk to Me, God is saying, Remember Me.  Ask yourself and Him, “How would the Lord want me to respond?”  “How can our response reflect to others the loving God we believe in and worship?”    The Lord convicts me with the idea that my angry response is often attempt to act as if I am god.  That angry response is often me attempting to lord it over another person.   But I am not God.  Neither are you.   He is and He loves people.  He loves you… and He loves the person who wrote that nasty email.  He loves us all so much that for all of us He gave His own Son.

So the next time you are ready to post something or respond in anger to an email or a mean thing someone said to you – Stop and think.  Stop and calm down.  Stop and pray.  Or as the Lord puts it, “Be still and know that I am God…”  not you.