Inverse

 Is it just me, or is this generation reading the counsel presented in the Word of God and doing the inverse? It’s not so much that they choose not to obey what the Word says. They go out of their way to do the opposite of what it counsels, as though disobedience wasn’t bad enough.

If the Word says turn right, this generation turns left. If the Word says submit, this generation rebels. If the Word says obey, this generation defies. Then, because it was raised to believe that it was always right and it was not within its ability to be wrong, this generation shakes its fist at God in anger when the consequences of its actions begin to manifest.

No matter what the circumstances, it’s never their fault that they are in the situation they are in. It’s always someone else; it’s always because of what someone else did or said, or implied, and when you point out that it was their choices that led them to where they are, they get angry and accuse you of being in league with those whom they blame for destroying their life.

If you point out that it was their choice to think so little of themselves that they’ve lost count of how many men used them, they’ll be quick to label you a misogynist. If you point out that it was their choice to take their wife for granted and not cherish her as the Bible says, they’ll be quick to label you a male feminist. You can’t win either way as long as you speak the truth, especially as long as there is a chorus agreeing with them that it’s everyone’s fault but their own. Do you think truth has fallen in the street because so many receive it?

James’s counsel is simple, practical, direct, and priceless. It is wisdom for the ages and applies to every generation, no matter how wise that generation sees itself in its own eyes.

James 1:19-20, “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

If we would just take these two verses to heart, follow through, and do what they say, there would be far less schism within the household of faith than there is. There would be far fewer hurt feelings, angry brethren, and divisions because we would allot the appropriate amount of time to processing what we heard, in that we are slow to speak, and given enough time, we realize we do not need to speak at all.

Rather than being swift to hear and slow to speak, we are slow to hear and swift to speak, and that creates more headaches than anything else. Everyone has an opinion and wants to be the first to verbalize it. The stubborn among us keep repeating their lunacy until it becomes part of the narrative and is forced upon the populace as normal and true when all evidence points to the contrary. Sorry, Bob, you can’t get pregnant just because you call yourself Barbara. That’s not the way it works.

A man is presumed wise until he opens his mouth to speak. Once he does, it’s either confirmed that they possess wisdom or proven to be a fool. Either way, the matter is settled.

There is no better advice than to listen, keep quiet, and not fly off the handle, especially during trials. Generally speaking, these may be good qualities to have, but they are invaluable when you’re going through a trial.

James doesn’t tell us to nurture and mature these qualities because they’re easy to procure and easier still to grow. He’s telling us to obtain them because difficult as they might be to have, they are necessary for our spiritual walk, growth, and maturing.

It’s hard to listen to anyone about anything when you’re going through a trial. Even the most sincere encouragement seems halfhearted and contrived, and rather than listen for God’s direction amid the storm, we’d rather run to and fro trying to find a way out of it. It’s counterintuitive to keep walking through the fire at the same pace as you were before the fire started, but it will take far longer to find your way out if you try to do it on your own than if you trust in God’s instruction.

Being slow to speak also has its benefits because, more often than not, we like to bloviate about things we do not fully understand, comprehend, or grasp. This is especially true when voicing our opinion about something a brother or a sister is going through without fully understanding the context or the situation as it is and not as it’s being presented to us by one side or the other. It’s no accident that the notion of there being three sides to every story, yours, mine, and the truth, has become commonplace. There is more truth in it than we would like to admit, and everyone tries to present themselves in the best possible light.

More often than not, by a wide margin, it is better to be slow to speak rather than to be swift to do so. Words spoken in haste aren’t always the wisest words that you could come up with, nor will they be the most edifying or encouraging. We’ve all been there. We’ve all said something we’d rather not have in the heat of the moment. We’ve all spoken in haste and lived to regret it, but hopefully, we learned from our mistake, and the next time we were given the choice to remain silent or speak in haste, we chose the former rather than the latter.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.