Trading Anger for Self-Restraint

Schlump: someone who is stupidly foolish.

Sage: someone who is profoundly wise.

Difference between the two? How we handle our anger. So warns Proverbs, God’s book of wisdom.

“A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back” (29:11).

“The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult” (12:16).

“A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention” (15:18).

“Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city” (16:32).

James, the Proverbs of the Old Testament, adds its “Amen.”

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (1:19-20).

Permission to ask the obvious but hard question? Where do you rate on the schlump/sage scale? Are you more the hothead, short-tempered, blow-your-fuse type or the cool, calm, collected self-restraint type? Most, I suspect, fall somewhere in between the two extremes.

True confession. Been there done the schlump thing. I tell one sad tale of my struggle with anger in my book. In a particularly challenging season of parenting two young teens, our family sought help from a Christian counselor. When asked to pick an animal which best described their experience of me, their dad, both boys offered the same response: grizzly bear. Get the picture? Busted. Thankfully, I might add.

I certainly don’t profess to qualify as a sage. But with God’s help I have been learning how to move the needle further away from the folly of my rage more to the wisdom of patient self-restraint. And more than not, the Lord has used painful circumstances like that therapy session to work gradual change in my story.

In my next few posts, I plan to camp out on a season in the life of David spanning First Samuel 24-26. There we find the man after God’s own heart enrolled in a training-for-kingship curriculum of God’s design. I call it the school of God’s providence (the holy, wise, and powerful acts by which he preserves and governs all his creatures, and all their actions). Ecclesiastes 7:14 counsels, In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. Days of adversity—hard providence—make particularly good tutors for valuable lessons in character development.

I will aim to convince you from the text of this central truth: The Lord uses trials like conflict to grow us in the virtues of self-restraint and waiting on Him. We will look at four things God uses to shape David’s character through a conflict: a great loss, a harsh offense, a wise woman, and a just end.

May the result in us be less shlumpness and more sageness for His glory and our joy.