Faithbase

Hey Faith-Based Family, blessings to you today. I'm in my jacket. I haven't quite acclimated to the cold weather after living abroad, but I had a funny flashback to a situation that happened while I was living abroad. We were living in Costa Rica, and at the time my oldest daughter was maybe 15 years old, so this is probably six years ago, and she was at an event, and her best friend was with her, and they were accepting tickets to a play. They were like the greeters, and as she was doing that, she noticed a gentleman get her bicycle and drive away. We lived about one mile from town, and so we walked and rode our bicycles into town, and she chased him down, and she said, hey what are you doing, and she talked back and forth, and he tried to communicate that he was just borrowing it. He wasn't actually stealing it, but obviously he was stealing it, and after the event ended up the situation, she came and shared with me what happened. Well, obviously as a loving dad, I maybe can be a little overprotective, or maybe way overprotective, and go mama bear on people who are unkind to my kids, and so I said, well just show me which one he is, and the funny thing is that she refused to show me which one he was, and I say that really as a confession. She refused because she knew that the reactionary me was not the best version of me. If I didn't have a plan, sometimes I reacted in a way that wasn't appropriate, so she knew me better than I knew myself. So I say that as a reminder for us just to take Paul's words in Ephesians 4 so seriously, that we not let any unwholesome talk come out of our mouths, that we have a high value for personal holiness, that we don't sin in our anger. It's totally okay to be angry at times. Sometimes it's the healthiest response, but we have a plan. What's our plan when we get angry? What's our plan when someone offends us, when someone cuts us off, when someone does things that's really just very hurtful or unkind to us? What's our plan? What are words that we won't say? What are things that we will say with the emotion? What are things that we won't allow ourselves to do? Have a plan, just a guard our mouth, a tight rein on our tongue like James says, but again, no unwholesome talk, high value for holiness, and that we don't sin in our anger, and again I'm going to repeat, sometimes anger is the most appropriate response when I just study of this hard things happening in the world, dark things, sad things, my heart breaks and anger starts to brew, but I have to guard my heart against anything that would be sinful. So I just pray as an encouragement to you, you have a plan. How will you honor the Lord in the hard times as well? How will you guard your tongue? How will you guard your thoughts? What's your plan for this? How will you prevent yourself from sinning in your anger? Even when Jesus got angry, it's okay to be angry, but let's make sure that even in our anger, we honor the Lord, how we process it, and what we communicate in the midst of our anger, and how we respond, unlike how I probably would have responded when the gentleman tried to steal my daughter's bike. Well blessings to you, with the Holy Spirit encourage you today, would he refresh you, would he give you hope and joy and peace, in Jesus name.