I’m guessing we all have a “flash point” . . . that point at which we kind of “lose it” . . . when anger takes over and takes control. Perhaps sometimes it’s a justified “flash point” . . . but as I think back over the years, in most cases, for me, it probably wasn’t. I recall as a teen “hitting the wall” and allowing something akin to rage to take over a number of times . . . once it resulted in me punching out the driver’s window in my car . . . embarrassing stuff to recall . . . a reminder of the sort of stuff that needed atoning for.

So what’s bringing to mind these memories that I would just as soon forget? It’s the living and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, word of God which penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (Heb. 4:12). In particular, it’s a bit of divine wisdom penned by Solomon . . .

“The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, and his glory is to overlook a transgression.” — Proverbs 19:11

Slow to anger . . . it’s a recurring theme in Proverbs . . . I think this is my fourth encounter with it . . . I’m guessing there’s one or two more. “He who is slow to anger has great understanding (14:29) . . . he who is slow to anger allays contention (15:18) . . . he who is slow to anger is better than the mighty (16:32).” And in Proverbs 19:11 it says that discretion, understanding, wisdom will make a man slow to anger . . . it will take a “short fuse” and make it a slow to burn fuse.

And I’m thinking it’s the “discretion” that comes with the understanding of my own sin . . . and my own ability to mess up . . . a recognition of my own weakness . . . along with the recognition of the mercy and grace of God . . . and His patience and longsuffering . . . that can move me (and I think has moved me to some degree) from being characterized by “sudden flashpoints” to “slow to anger.”

To imitate God, which we’re called to do (Eph. 5:1), is to be slow to anger. Evidence of the Spirit’s working in my life is the fruit of self-control (Gal. 5:23). The mark of knowing more the mind of Christ and growing in understanding and wisdom is having a “longer fuse.”

In fact the fuse gets so long that it allows me to overlook another’s transgression . . . to literally “pass over” another’s wrong against me. It’s a fuse which is emptied of the fast-burning powder of pride and self-interest and is, instead, filled with a love for others that covers a multitude of sin (1Peter 4:8) . . . a fuse packed a spirit which is “kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32).

As I “grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18), shouldn’t I be growing in grace? I’m thinkin’!

And, Solomon says, that to overlook a transgression is a man’s glory. Why? Because it reflects the glory of God. It’s the reflective beauty of the One who has been slow to anger with me . . . who, by the shed blood of the Son He sent, has passed over my transgressions and forgiven me.

I like to think that as the years have passed and the Potter has worked this clay, that I’m less prone to flash points . . . that as He increases and I decrease, that my fuse is getting longer . . . that as the Spirit of God continues to use the Word of God to instruct this Child of God, that I’m being a bit more conformed into His image. I like to think that . . . and to some extent it’s probably true . . . but how I need to continue to heed the Word . . . and seek by His power and grace to obey the Word . . . that I might bear the glory of a longer fuse . . . that I might bear the glory of one who passes over transgressions . . . all for the glory of the One who passed over mine.