Yesterday our family went for a walk in a park. While we were there we witnessed a heart-breaking yet powerful moment from afar.
As we were walking we heard one man screaming, he was so loud that we heard him across the park. His voice was filled with anger and rage. When we stopped walking to see what was going on. This man was was standing about 10 or so yards away from another man who was innocently walking two dogs. The enraged man was screaming profanity at this other man for no reason at all, and what he was screaming was awful. The man with the dogs kept his composure, and distance, saying nothing back. The out of control man eventually walked on, continuing to rant, rave and scream upsetting things.
Two people, who were close to the scene, approached the man with the dogs. It was lovely to see what appeared to be strangers checking in on him. Then they held up their phones to him - my gut was that they had recorded what happened and shared it with him. A little while later we saw the man with the dogs was with the police. He was holding his phone up to them. The police car soon headed in the direction of the enraged man who was still wandering through the park.
Witnessing this heart-breaking yet powerful moment made me think of real wisdom and strength. The man full of anger was saying all sorts of things in a loud voice that would appear to make the words strong yet what he displayed was lack of wisdom and weakness, tearing down another human with his words.
Wisdom here was the man with the dogs who chose to say nothing. And strength was in his ability to not react to the awful words being spewed at him. Rather than addressing the man himself, he responded wisely letting the law enforcement approach the man.
I share this with you today as reminder that our words and actions - and silence and inaction - are powerful, and we need to chose to use them wisely. Inspired by the man of integrity yesterday, I invite you to join me to...
pause. breathe. pray.™
May we all learn from his healthy response that we don't need to react to noise, hate, and lies. Instead in our silence, may we gain insight and strength from the Lord to know what we are to say and do, or what we need not say and do so that we don't feed the fire, but instead help diffuse it in one another, like this man did yesterday.
For more encouragement, be sure to listen to this week's PBP podcast episode "Please, stop telling yourself lies! Three steps to renew your mind."
With love and hope,
Shawn
“The tongue of the wise commends knowledge,
but the mouths of fools pour out folly.”
- Proversb 15:2