Dousing Anger

By Rosemary Flaaten –

“I can’t believe what she did to me. She swooped in and sweet-talked the boss into letting her have the big project—the one that was slated for me, and then she went on to brag about it. When I confronted her, she started ranting and slashing my character right in front of our coworkers.  I felt so humiliated.  I am never going to forgive her for what she did to me. You know what, she better watch her back because I’m not letting go of this.”

Does anything in this story sound familiar? Someone upsets us and we hold onto the anger that surfaces, perhaps even choosing to retaliate. And as we coddle this anger, its tentacles go deeper and deeper into our soul, strangling any chance of moving past the injustice, let alone having good come of it. Anger, when nursed, becomes a roaring fire within us.

So what do we need to do to douse the fire and stop the destructive nature of anger? Choosing to step away from any opportunity with which we are presented or may pursue to even the score, is always the first step.

The second step is to let go of the hurt by choosing to forgive. We may think that if we have to forgive the same person over and over again, then at some point it will be understandable for our goodwill to expire. This was the Apostle Peter’s mentality when he asked Jesus to affirm that forgiving seven times was more than sufficient (Matthew 18:21). The Jewish law considered it presumptuous and unnecessary to forgive more than three times. Jesus’ response to Peter’s self-congratulatory statement was to forgive as He would: seventy times seven.

Most often, this is as far as we take the topic of forgiveness. Don’t retaliate, forgive and let go. But I believe the biblical story of Joseph adds one final piece to the picture. Joseph chose to show kindness and goodness to the very brothers who had wronged him (Genesis 50:19-21). When we choose to do good to someone, even if it is just kind thoughts toward them, the stranglehold of anger loses its power within us.

Forgiveness diffuses anger.  Kindness douses it completely.

PRAYER: As this new year begins, may I choose a new path that enables me to pursue ways to show kindness to those who have wronged me.

“Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life” (Ephesians 4:26-27 The Message).

Today’s Devotional is by Rosemary Flaaten. Her successful book, A Woman and Her Relationships helps women process their outside-of-work relationships, so now she’s delving into these 9-5 relationships in A Woman and Her Workplace. Her Relationships book won The Word Guild Award, which is Canada’s top Christian literary honor. A dynamic speaker—Rosemary challenges women of all professions to view their work as a calling and their workplaces as opportunities to live out Christ’s love. Rosemary lives with her husband and three children in Calgary, Canada.

Book Review: Back On Murder

Written by J. Mark Bertrand
Reviewed by Nike Chillemi –

This is the Christian crime fiction novel I’ve been waiting for. It’s intelligent and well written. Author J. Mark Bertrand knows his police procedure and has got cop culture down.

Main character detective Roland March wants back on murder. He’s kind of flushed his career due a dark depression he’s been wallowing in which has led to his apathy about the job. As result he’s been assigned a string of undesirable cases, none of them homicide. Even his old partner, once a close friend, wants nothing to do with him. Then he notices a detail at a murder scene the other cops have missed and that lands him squarely on the case. This is his last chance to redeem himself and resuscitate his failed career.

Roland’s instincts tell him this homicide at a drug house, missing it’s female victim’s body, is linked to a high profile missing person’s case, where the other young female victim is a church going good girl. Sometimes it seems as if he’s trying to make the pieces fit. Sometimes he might be hoping they fit to prove a theory of the case that will allow him to exact revenge upon his old nemesis on the police force.

I didn’t always like protagonist Roland March. He can be petty, mean, dense, and not above begging. Near the beginning of the story, something snaps inside him and he manhandles a very drunk woman trying to get into her car outside a bar he frequents. He takes her keys away and might’ve even saved her life, but his behavior was over-the-top. Later, it’s revealed what personal demons drove him to conduct himself in so vile a manner.

The novel is definitely edgy. The main character is not saved and doesn’t get saved by the end of the book. One of the murders has highly sexual overtones. One of the characters may or may not have date raped a girl and Roland does little to nothing about it. There’s tons of violence. More than a few scenes take place in a cop bar. The hero thinks about sex with his wife more in sexual terms than in a romantic manner…or perhaps it’s in a habitual way. The autopsy scene is graphic. All this adds up to edgy Christian fiction. But it’s a fantastic ride. A detective story reader’s dream comes true.

I’m glad this is going to be a series. I don’t want to see Roland March go away any time soon. I’ll put this book up against any secular crime fiction best seller. Though writing style and hero personality is different, the book is comparable to Michael Connelly’s long running Harry Bosch series.

What makes Roland compelling is his cop’s sense of righting a wrong on behalf of the victim. He particularly wants justice for the nameless, faceless girl whose body is missing, but who so obviously died in that drug house. While Roland obviously has a gazillion negatives to his personality, he can also be noble, brave, loyal, and doggedly persistent.

Roland March is not a spiritual man, yet he’s the perfect one, to objectively show how the secular world views the church. He’s saddled with a new female partner, a Christian, who’s easy on the eyes and he’s ogled her, only to be slapped down. He later comes to respect her as a woman, cop, and valued partner. Through his eyes, we meet the young missing person victim’s mother, a church worker who indeed lives her faith. We get to see her at first through his jaded eyes and then slowly see she’s the real deal. We marvel at her compassion, just as he does.

I highly recommend this book to crime fiction fanatics of every stripe, or anyone looking for a terrific police procedural/thriller. This is an intelligent, complex, gritty mystery and the writing is excellent. It’s a real page turner.

Rethinking New Year’s Resolutions

By James H. Pence –

New Year’s resolutions. Most of us make them. Or at least we think about making them. Maybe we need to lose weight, exercise more, get out of debt, or read the Bible through. The New Year often gets us in evaluation mode. We examine our lives with a view to being better people.

Unfortunately, more often than not we break our resolutions before January ends. We sink back into long-established habit patterns, and in the end our resolutions are forgotten until the next year. Then we begin the process all over again. This has led some people to think about abandoning the idea of New Year’s resolutions altogether. It’s not that resolutions are bad, but if we repeatedly make them only to break them, they become discouraging and self-defeating.

I’d like to suggest a different approach to resolutions. It was exemplified over 200 years ago by the great pastor-theologian Jonathan Edwards. Early in his life and ministry Edwards made seventy lifelong resolutions. His resolutions are inspiring and challenging, even if some of them are a bit daunting.

Here are a few:

• Resolution #5: Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
• Resolution #7: Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
• Resolution #69: Resolved, always to do that, which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it.

What is it about Edwards’ resolutions that make them significant? Most New Year’s resolutions tend to be “me-centered.” Jonathan Edwards’ resolutions were God-centered. Personal commitments—made one time—with God’s glory in view. How did he manage to keep them and especially to keep from forgetting them? The answer is found just before the first resolution:

“Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake. Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.” (Emphasis added.)

Whether or not you make New Year’s resolutions, take Edwards’ example to heart. We should all regularly resolve to live to the glory of God; however that plays out in our daily life. May all the resolutions in our lives be God-centered.

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, grant that I might not make meaningless resolutions this year. By the power of Your Holy Spirit please enable me to resolve daily to live for Your glory.

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (I Corinthians 10:31 NIV).

Today’s devotion is by James H. Pence. James is an author, speaker, singer, and gospel chalk artist, but prefers to be known as a storyteller. To learn more about James and how he draws the stories of your heart, visit his Web site at: www.jamespence.com.

The Start of Something Good…or Not!

By Kathi Macias –

I’ve always been one of those “half-full” kind of people (as opposed to half-empty). You know what I mean—an optimist who prefers to focus on the positive rather than the negative and who usually expects things to get better instead of worse. But sometimes that’s not an easy stance to maintain.

Let’s face it. Even we half-full people get stuck in the middle of half-empty ones much of time, don’t we? How about the recent Christmas gathering where you were chatting with a handful of attendees, telling them about how grateful you were to be feeling better lately? The half-empty pessimist responds with, “That’s what happened to my Uncle Ned right before he died.”

Thanks, buddy.

Someone else in the group tries to turn the conversation back to a cheerful note by commenting about how God has blessed him with a raise. Another Gloomy Gus pipes up with, “Some bosses do that just before they fire you.”

Really? Of course not! We know how ridiculous that reasoning is, but it’s tough to counter, isn’t it?

The one that really gets me, though, is the “life-is-awful-and-then-you-die” sage, who thinks he’s so clever and deep by tossing that tidbit into the mix. Some of the other comments I can ignore, but that’s one I just can’t let go by.

When someone throws the “and then you die” phrase at me, I smile and say, “Yes! Isn’t that wonderful? No matter how tough things might be here on earth, it will all be over in the blink of an eye, and if we know Jesus as our Savior, we get to go be with Him!”

If the person knows the Lord, that usually turns him or her back to the right focus. If not, it can open an avenue for a great discussion. What better time to watch for that sort of opportunity than at the onset of a brand new year? January is the perfect occasion for emphasizing fresh starts and promising goals. It’s the time of year when nearly everyone comes up with some sort of New Year’s resolution:

“I’m finally going to lose that pesky twenty pounds this year.” (Right. Anyone who goes to a gym knows the place is packed out in January—nearly empty by mid-February!)

“I’m going to try to patch things up with Aunt Martha so family gatherings won’t be so strained in the coming year.” (A worthy goal, indeed!)

“I’m going to write that book…climb that mountain…take that class…learn to paint…practice the piano…” (You get the picture.)

The bottom line is that we all know our life isn’t what it should/could be, and the New Year seems to offer us a chance to make it better. Sadly, few resolutions ever amount to anything more than another crushed dream or one more guilt trip to add to the already mountain-size baggage we’ve been lugging around from previous years.

So why am I a half-full optimist rather than a half-empty pessimist? Because I’ve learned one thing in life (not much else, I’m afraid, but it’s enough!), and that’s that it isn’t about me: life, the universe, circumstances, eternity, or anything else. I didn’t make me, and I can’t change me. But I know the One who can, and He is more willing to do so than I can ever be. In Philippians 1:6 He promises to complete the “good work” He began in me, and I’m just simple enough to believe that and let Him do it.

Won’t you join me in that half-full attitude and give the past (last year and all the years before it) to God, and then ask Him to fulfill His purpose for you in the coming year? If we do that, I can assure you that 2011 will be the best ever. The choice is up to us; the rest is up to Him. And that’s a really good place to start the New Year!

Kathi Macias (www.kathimacias.com; http://kathieasywritermacias.blogspot.com) is an award-winning author of more than 30 books, including her latest release, Red Ink, from New Hope Publishers. Kathi and her husband, Al, live in Southern California, where the two of them spend their spare time riding Al’s Harley—hence, Kathi’s “road name” of Easy Writer.

The Road Less Traveled

By Cheri Cowell –

Whether we call them New Year’s resolutions or simply think of them as plans for the start of a new year, many of us choose new paths this time of year. When choosing a path forward we can follow the road less traveled, but if we are honest, most of us prefer the path of relative ease. Crowded and filled with familiarity, this road appears to go where we want to go, after-all “everyone” is on it. One look at the commercials this time of year and we know this crowded thoroughfare—buy this product or that and you’ll look younger, feel smarter, reach your dreams. You can have it all, they scream, if only you… Songs are made to glorify this super-highway and books tempt us with stories of its fulfillment. However, once lulled by its smooth surface, we find little truth in its travel brochures. The grass isn’t greener on the other side—weeds still grow there, too.

The lesson is clear: be sure you are not fooled by their flashy advertisements. The road less traveled, the more difficult way is the true path to fulfillment. This familiar passage in Matthew speaks of this narrow way, but separated from the next passage we don’t know how to find this road and will easily fall prey to deceptive advertising. So, what is this big secret? Simple. Look at the fruit. Jesus asks, “Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” The road less traveled might be less crowded, but those who’ve found it will have the life those on the other paths only dream of.

PRAYER: Thank You for being the Gate through which the road less traveled passes. Help me to be aware of false advertising, and to resist the lull of the path of relative ease.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14, 15-20 NIV).

Today’s devotion is by Cheri Cowell, author of Direction: Discernment for the Decisions of Your Life, a great book for those looking for a guide on the road less traveled. Visit her website at http://www.CheriCowell.com

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