You overslept, you dropped your phone and the screen cracked, the car wouldn’t start, you arrived late, and your laptop crashed and lost your latest assignment! Things like these can make us lose our tempers, but only if we let them. Solomon said, ‘A quick-tempered person does foolish things,’ so if we tend to fly into a rage, we need to expect the fallout that follows. The Bible says, ‘Patience is better than strength. Controlling your temper is better than capturing a city’ (Proverbs 16:32 NCV). Anger always comes back to bite us eventually, and can even end up doing more damage than the thing that triggered it. David said, ‘Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on your altar’ (Psalm 5:3 MSG). Start by offering your day to God, then you’ll be less likely to react in anger when things go wrong. One pastor wrote: ‘Our time here is short. What a shame to let something that happened – twenty years or twenty minutes ago – ruin your day. I’ve made up my mind to enjoy every single one. I may make mistakes; things may not go my way. I may be disappointed, but I’m going to live my life happy. I’m not going to let what does or doesn’t happen steal my joy. Every morning I say, “Father, this is going to be a great day. I thank you that I have discipline, self-control; that I make good decisions. I may not have done what I could have yesterday, but that day is gone. I’m going to do better today.”’ A good visual reminder is to think of a car’s windscreen and its rear-view mirror. The windscreen is big and the mirror small – in other words, what’s behind us isn’t anywhere near as important as what’s ahead. So keep looking forwards, and no matter what happens today, don’t lose your peace.
