MEMORY VERSE:
A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. Proverbs 15:1
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Revelations 1-6
One thing you cannot avoid in your relationships with people, from time to time, is little misunderstandings. It is either what you said was misunderstood or you misunderstood what someone said. It is either someone misinterpreted your action or words, or you misinterpreted what someone did or said. These usually happen especially when chatting with people through text or WhatsApp or BBM. One of the reasons why these misunderstandings occur is because we see life differently, we have different passions, we have different priorities, we have different perspectives to things. Always have this at the back of your mind; you don’t know what the other person is going through. Even if you know what they are going through, you don’t know the pain they are in. A brother told a sister that her friend was rude to him - he greeted her several times and she didn’t respond. The sister then asked him, where were you standing when you greeted her? “To her left”, he said. The sister smiled and told him that her friend was deaf in the left ear. When a misunderstanding occurs, ask God for wisdom. Some misunderstandings are arrows from hell to destroy relationships that God wants to use to bless you.
As such, how you handle a matter/situation/
misunderstanding matters. Why? How you handle it will determine whether it will be resolved or not. According to Proverbs 22:10, the moment you cast out the scorner contention will end. If you don’t handle that matter well, it may get out of hands. A couple once divorced over a milk tin-can. The husband punched a can of milk in a way the wife didn't like. The wife said something out of anger and the husband responded. The next thing was, "are you talking to me like that?"- "Yes, and so what..." Before they knew it the marriage was over. In some instances, little misunderstandings have resulted into a full blown war. This was the exact thing that happened in Northern Ireland some thirty years ago. The war between the Catholics and Pentecostal in Ireland could have been prevented had the police officers who were called to the scene handled it with godly wisdom. That little misunderstanding led to a thirty-year war. Part of handling a matter with godly wisdom is watching how you react to things. Several years back, some police officers went to arrest a young man at home. The young man felt he was innocent so he refused to go with the police officers to the station. Since he was refusing arrest, the police men decided to use force. A neighbour who saw what was happening and called the boy’s senior brother. He told him that the police were trying to arrest his brother without a cause. The senior brother grabbed a big stick and ran to the scene. The police officers saw him approaching with a big stick and opened fired and killed him. The case went to court and the police officer who fired the bullet said he fired the bullet in self-defense; he was discharged and acquitted. Later the boy was released. If the senior brother had done things differently he would still be alive.
NOTE: Don’t fight violence with violence.
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Bro Samuel | Reaching the world
