Cool Your Jets!

Psalms 37:8  Stop being angry! Turn from your rage! Do not lose your temper— it only leads to harm.

The summer after I got out of high school I got a job working at Aamco Transmissions. Summers in Imperial Valley are brutal! The temperature can get as high as 120 degrees, and averages over 100 all summer.

People would drive their cars in to Aamco and need transmission service, and I was tasked with removing the old fluid from the transmission. If you’ve never had to remove parts from a car that has been driving in 115 degree weather, let me tell you, it involves a fair bit of burned skin, cussing, more burned skin, followed by even more cussing. If we could just let the cars cool down, the job would have involved fewer burns and a lot less cussing.

The word translated as stop in today’s verse literally means “to hang down, go limp, to give up.”

In other words, cool your jets. We are so conditioned to act out our anger. We let fly at people on the freeways, people on TV, people in our homes and neighborhoods. The Lord has taken me on a journey these last few years showing me how destructive my anger has been to those around me, and to myself.

What are you angry about? Cool your jets! When you feel yourself getting angry, ask God to show you the root of your anger. Taking the time deal with what we are really angry about also takes the fire out of that anger. And that gives us the proper heart to deal correctly with the issue.

Take a moment and cool your jets!

Today’s Readings:  Joshua 1,2; Psalm 37; 1 Corinthians 3