COUNT TO
TEN AND BE MORE CHRIST-LIKE
I was
sitting quietly in a coffee shop with my laptop, notebook, and Bible, totally
engaged in a word study, when out of my peripheral vision, a nightmarish face
invaded my space. It startled me, and I grabbed my purse from the empty chair
next to me and slid it onto the floor by my feet. I had earplugs in so I
couldn’t hear what the grizzly-looking man was mumbling. A few moments passed,
and I heard Jane’s clear voice coming from the next table: “We’re working here.
We don’t have time to talk.” The man angrily mumbled something about the Bible
and got up and left in a matter of minutes.
Later
on, Jane and I talked about it. She told me she was ready to fry the guy with
her words the minute she saw him approach me, but she’s been practicing
counting to ten before she speaks. It was amazing. Her quiet, honest words only
got one low, grumbled complaint before the nightmare man left.
I
thought about a lesson I’d heard as a child: “When you get angry, count to ten
before you speak.” Jane counts “one one thousand, two one thousand, three one
thousand, etc.” I learned it as: “one dimension, two dimension, etc.” I think
it works with any three-syllable word, but the point is, it does work.
My
tendency is to sit there and boil on the inside until I can hardly stand it and
can’t concentrate anymore. Either that, or I fire off some snide remark out
loud or under my breath.
Not
Jane. She counted to ten and calmly and clearly told the man we didn’t have
time for conversation. And it was true. I was studying for an article, and she
was working on promotions.
There
are several verses in the Bible that say God is slow to anger. We are to “be
imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph. 5:1).
Nehemiah
9:17 says this: “Thou art a God ready to pardon,
gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness.”
Counting
to ten is one way to make sure we don’t fly off the handle in rage, but
instead, be more like God, slow to anger. By calming ourselves, we give the
Spirit a chance to work, instead of being led by emotion.
Ever
since I was a little girl, I’ve had a hot temper (maybe partly my Sicilian
background?), but the truth is that no matter where it came from, only God can
really change those built-in character bents. Unlike one who “flies off the
handle,” the Lord is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in
mercy” (Ps. 103:8).
Psalm
145:8 tells us: “The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger,
and of great mercy.” Anyone who knows the old Jane, knows she can cut to the
bone and turn a live person to sand (figuratively) with her words. But her
answer to the scary man in the coffee shop was full of compassion. She spoke
the words calmly and straightforward. After counting to ten, she had no anger,
just truth.
Solomon's
wisdom on slowing down our wrath is found in Proverbs 15:18: “A wrathful man
stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife.”
And
Solomon goes on to say, “Better to be slow to
anger than to be a mighty warrior, and one who controls his temper is better
than one who captures a city” (Prov. 16:32). These are some powerful
words.
Is it
worth it to count to ten to calm our anger? Definitely! It is God’s will that
we do it, as we can see from these scriptures.
In the
Amplified version of Colossians 3:1-3, the Apostle Paul admonishes us as
Christians: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are
above, where Christ is sitting on the right hand of God. [We’ll be there soon.]
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For [in
reality] ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” He goes on to
say in verse 5: “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth.” Anger
is among the things he lists.
If you
know any other way to be slow to anger, God bless you. For now, since I’ve seen
the amazing true results in Jane, I’m going with “one dimension, two dimension,
three dimension, four dimension, five dimension, six dimension . . . . With
the Lord’s help, we can definitely change some of those bad habits from our
past.
A few
days after the first incident, the same man walked by Jane in the same coffee
shop, and the demon in him audibly growled at her! But Jane had no fear, and
the man left. I pray that one day, this man has the same experience as the man
of the Gadarenes in Mark 5:15: “ And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed
with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind.”
And though we were not led to minister to this man at the time, I totally
believe it is possible for him to be delivered and made completely whole. All
things are possible with God.
One dimension, two dimension . . .
Love, Carolyn
I have a variety of books and booklets on
contemporary Christian living. I know you can find something that will resonate
with your life and heart during these challenging times.
