Correct with Respect

 

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Matthew 12:34b

I recently became a customer of an organization that requires my regularly going to someone’s house to pick up my purchases.

Twice I have received from the local representative an angry email regarding pick up protocol. I was certainly relieved when I realized I was not the object of her rant (though even she does not know who the object is). It is one or two of the whole group who have irritated her so she sends a general email letting us all know how angry she is. The email is both angry and disrespectful.

“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” was what my Mother taught me.  This woman may have legitimate concerns and a need to correct us. She does not need to disrespect us.

I wonder what she is like to her husband and children. Scripture suggests that this anger is stored in her heart and overflows from there.  If I, having barely met her, am afraid to cross her, what must she be like to be around all the time?

Proverbs 12:16 says, “The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult” and Proverbs 14:29 says, “Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.”

I can completely ignore her behavior, but if she acts this way to strangers, is it worse for family and friends?

Anger is a dreadful thing to a child, disrespect in the way a parent corrects a child often creates more problems than it solves. It is difficult for a child who lives in fear of the wrath of Mom (or Dad) to ask a simple question or try something new because they fear the fallout if they fail to do it well or on the schedule that makes Momma happy.

Another Proverb (29:11) says that a fool will give full vent to her anger but the wise person will be self-controlled. We know the old advice about taking a deep breath and counting to ten before we respond in anger.  I wonder, if we took that 10 seconds and asked God to show us if the situation is worthy of the response we are about to let go of, would we yell less and correct with respect more often?

Children, even husbands and sometimes co-workers, need to be corrected or hear that we see things from a different perspective, but doing it with anger creates dissension, not peace and harmony.  On the other hand, Proverbs tells us that a gentle word turns away anger.

I do not know if this woman loves the Lord. But, there are  plenty of professing Christian women who are angry and disrespectful when they are responding to their children and their husbands.  This is not God’s way. Through the power of the Holy Spirit we can overcome anger and learn to teach and train our children in the healthy fear and admonition of the Lord, not the unhealthy fear of a Mother who lacks self-control when she has been inconvenienced by her child. A mother who, by the way, is the representative of God for that child.

Proverbs 22:24-25 warn us about angry people, “Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.”

Anyone want to make a pick-up for me this week?