Hardcore Brokenness: Slow to Anger

I don't know about you, but there are a lot of things in my life that are clearly only there to test my patience. Traffic, the public transport system, broken escalators, slow waiters, my mother, the list goes on!

I find over the years I have grown a lot in my patience. I almost never outwardly react to the things that bother me, which is a lot better than exploding or freaking out when I lose my patience. But I know that's not really enough, because, while I might not show it on the outside, I'm still very quick to get angry about these things on the inside. A lot of people would argue that it's better to let it out than to bottle it up, but I would say it's best to not even get to that point to begin with.

But how can we do that?


We are told in Corinthians that Love is a number of things. The first of these things is patient! I think there's a significance to the fact that it is the first one listed in that passage. I think that's because it's so essential to the rest of them- if you lose your patience, it's impossible to be loving, kind and so on because your heart is in the wrong place for that.

When it comes to matters of the heart like this, there's really no *practical* advice I can give you. This is partly because it's all stuff I'm dealing with as well, and partly because I believe that the only really good way to deal with these things is by giving them to God and asking Him to change your heart to be more like His.

So if you're like me and regularly find yourself struggling to keep a cool head (or heart!) in the midst of such trials, I want to challenge you to bring those feelings to God and ask Him to change your heart! Ask Him to help you be quick in love and slow to anger.

Prayerfully,