Walking the Talk (is serious exercise!)

"Be careful what you pray for."

If that's not a saying, it should be!

I'm hot-tempered. It's the main thing I had to ask God for help with. You know, after the whole,"Please save my soul" favor.

It's a wonder that God isn't just so sick and tired of me by now. But then, He is God. Thank God!

Recently I prayed a prayer that got answered with a quickness I wasn't prepared for. My prayer went something like this: "Please, Lord, help me to be more thoughtful with my words and actions. Help me to reign in my temper. Let me live my life as a testament to the changes You have made and are making in me."

Then I had to repent a whole bunch of stuff because I had spent the previous night carousing around the backyard fire pit with a bunch of friends and family. Oh, how we laughed and talked. And cursed and gossiped and discussed things that we really should not have been discussing...

Yeah.

So, my prayer was sent up and apparently given Priority rating because, before I knew what hit me, I got the chance to hear God's answer.

As usual, I'm hard of hearing when it comes to God's voice. Like the kid who can hear the ice-cream truck from 6 blocks away, but can't hear the sound of his mother's last nerve snapping when he disobeys for the millionth time.

Let's just say that I got myself into a verbal situation with someone and I could have remembered my prayer and reigned in my temper. I could have.

That would have been beautiful. By holding my temper and responding to the other person with a kind and thoughtful response, I would have been a testament to the work that God is doing in my life. It would have been easier on me and a more powerful reaction than the one I actually had. Which was to get hurt and irritated and respond from a position of pride and negativity.

God is infinitely patient with me, but I am sure, as they say, this is what my guardian angel must have looked like:

                                                            

Oh boy. So, yeah.

I asked God for something and He gave me the perfect opportunity to receive His answer. And I blew it. What could have been so easy, I made triple hard.

I walked around for probably two hours, just livid, about the whole conversation. I replayed the other person's words in my head, considered every nuance of their attitude, and just ripped them apart in my mind.

Then

I stopped.


I stopped listening to myself, my pride, my past, my feelings and emotions. I stopped hearing myself long enough to hear God again. I heard God's love for me, and His patience. And I realized how unloving I was being.

Now I have to repent for my hard head and hard heart. And I still have to let God work on what I prayed.

The most ironic part of all this is that the verbal altercation I was involved in had to do with, of all things...

(I really hate to admit this)

...how we who say that we are Christians actually live out our Christianity in our daily lives.

I'm still in the crawling stages

(I will wait while you finish shaking your head at my complete and utter folly.)

I can just imagine the glee that Satan got out of this. I can also imagine his disappointment when I stopped running on my own steam and gave myself back over to He who lives within me.

Anyway, this is one of those times that I need to walk the talk.

I say I am a Christian, so I have to learn to love and live and forgive and repent, just as Christ commands me to.

I have to walk the talk and, boy, is this going to be some serious exercise.

Peace
--Free