Good Morning Friends,
“A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if
you rescue him, you will have to do it again.” (Proverbs 19:19)
John McEnroe was a great tennis player. He
was quick, strong, and accurate. He was one of the handful of elite tennis
players who had the capability of winning any tournament he entered.
But McEnroe had a problem that kept him from
enjoying the success that he could have enjoyed and kept him from being loved
and appreciated by the fans as much as he could have been. He had a horrible
temper. If the officials made a call that he didn’t agree with he would often
fly off the handle with cursing, throwing rackets, and ugly displays of
behavior.
Have you ever seen a grown man who didn’t know
how to control his anger? It’s an ugly sight. The ugliness of McEnroe’s
behavior was made even more appalling because it was in front of the whole
world. Television beamed his tirades into millions of homes.
I don’ t know much about John McEnroe’s
growing up years, but my theory is that his parents never punished him for his
angry outbursts when he was young. They let him get away with what to most
people would be unacceptable behavior. They rewarded his anger by giving in to it.
He got his way when he threw a fit when he was young and expected that same
kind of tactic to work as he grew to a man, too.
That’s what Solomon is talking about in
Proverbs 19. If anger doesn’t have a down side … if it works to allow a person
to get his way, then it will keep being the behavior of choice for the person.
The best cure for anger in a child or in an adult is not to let them get their
way with their anger. Let them see that anger doesn’t pay, it costs.
That’s good advice for raising children … and
a good reminder for adults, too. “Man’s anger does not bring about the
righteous life that God desires.” (James 1:20)
His, by Grace,
Steve
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