Slow to Anger Is Stronger Than a Warrior

Proverbs 16:32 says that better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city. In a world where taking cities was the highest form of achievement, the writer says that ruling your own temper ranks above it.

This is a lesson for ordinary weeks because ordinary weeks are where patience is actually tested. Nobody loses their temper at a retreat. They lose it in traffic, in the kitchen at six in the evening, on the third phone call with the insurance company. Proverbs 14:29 adds that whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly. Impatience, in other words, is not only unpleasant. It is a failure of understanding. The patient person sees more: the reasons behind the delay, the pressures on the other person, the smallness of the thing in the long view.

Proverbs 19:11 says a person's wisdom yields patience and it is to one's glory to overlook an offense. Notice the word glory. Overlooking an offense is treated as an achievement, something to be honored.

One practice for this week: when you feel the heat rising, name to yourself what you are actually about to fight over. Most of the time it will be smaller than the anger. Then decide whether to overlook it. That decision, made repeatedly, is what Proverbs calls strength.