Be Prepared to Zip Your Lip

Proverbs 29:11 Fools are quick to express their anger, but wise people are patient and control themselves.

Family gatherings like Christmas can be a great blessing. Catching up with loved ones that we perhaps haven’t seen in a while is awesome … until it’s not: Until old tensions surface. Until someone says or does something that sets someone else off.

We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Because the thing with families is that we’ve been around each other (most of us) for rather a long time. So the old Chinese water torture effect – that drip, drip, dripping of a person’s same old weaknesses, same old foibles, same old blind spot – can drive you mad.

And it doesn’t matter how smart you are, how clever or how wonderful you think you might be, the temptation is to let that same old trigger in that person’s makeup or behaviour set you off. And before you know it, unpleasantness hangs like a dark cloud over your Christmas, over what should have been the most incredibly special time. Christmas is ruined yet again.

I had to smile the other day when I read this: the ability to speak several languages is an asset, but the ability to keep your mouth shut in any language is priceless.

And the reason we chuckle at that is that we get it, right?! We can all look back on times when, if only we’d kept our mouth shut, how much better things would have turned out.

Proverbs 29:11 Fools are quick to express their anger, but wise people are patient and control themselves.

So if you’ll be celebrating your Christmas with someone who rubs you the wrong way, there’s a piece of God’s wisdom to take to the dinner table.  

Fools are quick to express their anger, but wise people are patient and control themselves.

That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.

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