Whoa! (Or is it, Woe?!?)

Perhaps it’s both.  Haven’t heard much about road rage lately, but I’m wondering if that’s because it’s just become so commonly a part of our culture that it’s no longer considered news-worthy.  Anger is a powerful human emotion, and one of the destructively deceptive things about anger is that we feel like we’re in control (in many ways akin to alcohol).  But usually, 9 times out of 10, we probably are not. 

There was an occasion in my job when I had an encounter with a parent in which I had decided ahead of time to attempt to communicate in the way she chose to communicate with me.  Up to that point, her mode of interaction had been, for the most part, adversarial.  (Evidently, I was not the only one, thankfully, I don’t need another “complex”.)  I thought I would regulate the confrontation…conversation, because I was in control. 

I wasn’t, in control that is.  What I was, was angry, tired of being treated with contempt and utter disrespect.  My attempt backfired, more like exploded, publicly and it wasn’t pretty.  I felt exposed.  After all, she wasn’t my enemy; I have one of those far worse who had set me up, and my lack of self-control allowed me to take the bait.

“A person without self-control is like a city with broken-down walls.”

As a nation, we’ve talked quite a bit about the differing opinions surrounding our national security, be it missiles in North Korea or open borders for emigration.  I’m a bit more concerned with how, as a populous, as a culture, we Americans have increasingly cast off restraint, even in public.  I hear people openly arguing, screaming at each other, as they walk down the street.  As consumers, we go into mega-bucks of debt for things we could wait for, but simply don’t want to.  Sexual fulfillment is tragically defined by a succession of encounters rather than waiting and investing in that one person for a lifetime.  Whoa! Slow down and consider!

As a people, our walls are broken, and we are exposed.  Woe! to us if we don’t rebuild them.

Prov 25:28  Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.