Flying Off the Handle
Psalm 103:8,13 The LORD is kind and merciful. He is patient and full of love … As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
When you make a mistake, when you sin, do you go straight to God and ask for forgiveness? Or do you hang off at a distance, wondering what to do? Hmm?
“Flying off the handle” is a term that these days, we know only too well. You see it almost every day. Horns honking in a traffic jam. Sharp words in the supermarket aisle. Sparks flying at home.
In fact, the busier we get, the more pressure we’re under, the more prone we are to “flying off the handle”; to allowing anger and retribution to win out, over love, joy, peace and forgiveness.
And when this anger of ours is on a hair trigger, when just the slightest amount of pressure sets it off, that’s really ugly. And sadly, we’ve almost come to expect that of other people. In many quarters, it’s become the norm.
So when we do just one thing wrong, we kind of expect God’s anger to come crashing down on us like a ton of bricks. We struggle with something in our lives, and we expect God to punish us. That’s how it goes, right? God’s anger is on a hair trigger like ours, right?
But that’s not it. That’s not how it goes at all!
Psalm 103:8,13 The LORD is kind and merciful. He is patient and full of love … As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
It turns out that God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. So the next time you mess things up, don’t hang off at a distance. Don’t wait. Go straight back to God.
For as a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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