Wednesday 30 August 2017

Flood of strife

Proverbs 17:14
The beginning of strife is like letting out water, 
so quit before the quarrel breaks out. 

This struck me as I read it. 
The beginning of strife..... the start of conflict, resentment, bitterness, anger, disagreement, is like leaving the tap on. Starts as a little stream, but it can end up flooding the whole household. 

The trick, as this proverb says is to stop it before it even drips. Much better to learn how to do that rather than to fix the damage of a flood. A flood of words does considerably more damage than a flood of water. So, for our own lives and the sake of those around us we must learn to tame ourselves. 

Learning to 'hold our tongue' is an incredible skill. One that I'm still battling about, so easy to let things slip. I have realised I need to be on guard a lot more than I am, because before I know it I end up saying stuff I don't even mean, or know where it's come from. Do you ever feel like that? 

I don't want to flood the lives around me with strife, so I need to learn how to turn off the strife. I need to learn how to not be angry, bitter or disagreeable. How can I do that? 
Like my kids, I find it hard to just stop doing something. I have to have an alternative avenue to go down. There must be a different route because just not doing something is hard. I must do something.

So, I'm thinking, what's the opposite of strife? Peace, contentment, being in accord. 
If the strife is towards a person. Instead of concentrating on the point of disagreement, I can focus on the good. The things that I admire about them, the good characteristics they display. I can learn to be thankful for them. Not living in a place of discontent or resentment, but having an attitude of gratitude. 


I'm going to give it a try, I'm fed up of the turmoil that strife produces, of the dripping with negative emotions that eventually bring a flood. 

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