Tiny Devotional for Thursday, 06-29-2023

 A great good morning to all my friends and neighbors in Internet Land! And to family members who have dropped by, wanna buy a duck?

Scorners set a city aflame,
But wise men turn away anger.
Proverbs 29:8, NASB

“I reached my formative years at a time when the country was tearing itself apart.”
Has there EVER been a time when the country wasn’t tearing itself apart? Ask your friendly neighborhood historian.

King Solomon ruled just under 3000 years ago, and whether he wrote this proverb himself, or contracted it out to Iron Age Speechwriters Guild, this is ANCIENT writing. Somehow, without social media, without talk radio, telephones, newspapers, or even a reliable postal system, scorners set a city aflame. 

Internet trolls and a certain flavor of social influencers are modern scorners. They have created NOTHING new, just been handed new methods of spreading the ancient scorn/fertilizer.  

Ancient scorn and modern communication still set cities aflame.  Remember the summer of 2020? Three years ago this month, my family and I only avoided being trapped in a riot because WAZE, our traffic navigation software, gave us a radically different route home from my grandson’s birthday party.

Scorn remains; does the solution still work? Are wise people turning away anger?

Sometimes. 

When three white men were convicted of murdering a black man, by a jury of 11 whites and 1 black, anger was turned away.

When voters refused to re-elect an Atlanta DA who used inflammatory video in his campaign, anger was turned away. 

When a wise person hears a juicy word, and asks:

• Is it true? 
• Is it helpful? 
• What is my motive?

and then acts based on the answers to those questions, anger is turned away.

(shutting up often works, too. Just sayin’.)

Peace be on your household.