“Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.” (James 1:19-20 NLT)
Two young ladies who had just left a nearby church. For real! An hour had not passed when they ran into each other at a retail store, one was accompanied by a friend who was not at church. The other young lady was alone. The two who had just been to church had more than attending worship regularly in common. They both had heartfelt feelings for the same young man. Oh my! You can already sense temperatures were rising, and tension was ascending as well.
The young lady shopping with her friend, the one who was not a churchgoer, starts the confrontation. She says, “If you think Marvin wants you, too bad. I got him.” The young lady that was not accompanied by any friend, not with any non-churchgoing friend whose presence might have caused her surrender to a so-called need to engage in the confrontation, still could not refrain from responding. She tried not to, but she could not completely control her tongue. She responds back, expressing herself in a factual manner, “Think whatever you want, but Marvin and I are going to see a movie later.” The devil is stirring things up! Her feathers ruffled! Her being the lady who initiated the conversation. She hands her purse to her friend, shakes her fingers, wags her head back and forth, clenches her fists, and says, “I don’t think so! And we can settle this right here girl.” The other young lady regains her Christians composure and responds, “We should not be doing this! And think about it, we just got out of church.” The aggressive, aggravating, initiating, provoking, young lady says with a sassy voice, “We aren’t in church now!” Being a peacemaker, the other young lady says, “There is no need to fight. You can have him. And as far as ‘not being in church,’ perhaps you did not hear the preacher say, ‘We are the church, everywhere we go.” She walks away quietly, deescalating the interaction. Her fellow young churchgoer tries to get in the final word, as if she got the victory, “That’s right you better walk away and carry yourself to wherever you are going!” As we say, “The devil is a liar,” right? Who do you think really got the victory?
I sure hope you got the question right about who got the victory, and I hope that remark, “We aren’t in church now” is something you will never say, and those unchristian actions are something you will never do. For you realize that you are part of the church outside of the sanctuary, in every space you stand and every place you go, and in every interaction with the human race. Now, I won’t tell you to “walk away and carry yourself to wherever you are going,” like the lady above, but I will tell you, both male and female, to carry yourself as one of the righteous ones and one of Christ’s witnesses. Have a great day, in service today, and after service too. Enjoy the day, one where you will have a clear conscience and a clear picture of the fact that wherever you go, church is in session! Watch what you say and do, after you leave the church parking lot! Have a wonderful week! Be blessed!
“If anyone thinks himself to be religious [scrupulously observant of the rituals of his faith] and does not control his tongue but deludes his own heart, this person’s religion is worthless (futile, barren).” (James 1:26 The Amplified Bible)
Still committed to the climb,
Mark L. King