James 1:19 (Bible)

“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.”

I have to admit that I’m not always, ‘slow to anger’ in my everyday life. I find that I can get irritated very easily by small things that can turn my calm, happy demeanor into a three eyed fire breathing beast that is ready to slay anything or anyone near me in the matter of seconds. My response usually doesn’t produce any good because it always invites an invitation to the person who is irritating me to mirror my response which always makes my initial irritation with them twice as bad. Can you relate?

This past month I’ve really become aware of this behavior and wondered how or if I could ever change my response not to get angry so fast.

I once heard a speaker talk about memorizing verses from A to Z that would bring about greater joy and balance to every one’s life. I whole heartily agree with her. I’ve learned hundreds of verses which have helped me through out my life. She also said that she even used them when she was trying to defeat anger towards someone. I was very cynical about this. Who remembers verses when you are in the midst of anger and being irritated. She didn’t have my life!

Fast forward a year later and I’m on a road trip with my family. To pass the time away, we started playing the ABC game locating words that begin with each letter. It was fun and it did the job – for about 40 minutes of the 5 hour trip. Then something happened and boom! The beast appeared. Feeling terrible about it afterwards, my mind reflected back to the speaker and her A-Z memory verses. Would it work?

Well, less than 24 hours later, I had the opportunity to try it out. Something really, really irritated me! Instead of yelling my usual ‘rants’, I yelled out verses that I could think of as I took slow, deep breathes in between — ‘A-Abide in me!, B-Be still and know that I am God!, C-Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord!, D-Delight thyself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart!, E-….’ I couldn’t think of a verse that started with the letter E! However, by the time I was at E, I was considerably calmer than 4 minutes earlier. And, the individual who irritated me was confused. Where had the beast gone? And who was this new person shouting out verses? So we started talking about how I wanted to change my usual response to anger. I told him about the verses and encouraged him to use them as calming techniques for his anger.

I’ve had plenty of opportunities to perfect this new calming practice in the past 4 weeks since starting it and I have thought up more verses for the entire alphabet, though some verses are paraphrased to make them fit the corresponding letter.

And, I’ve had help! My family has helped me and they now know that when I start shouting verses in the ABC method, I’m really trying to calm myself from turning into the beast. You know what? They love it! In fact, I’ve gotten people to stop doing irritating offenses and even apologize for upsetting me. What a difference it has made in my life and in our family!

So, if you are cynical like me, I challenge you to try it. You can order the ‘official memory card’ set from http://www.cindybultema.com/resources/a-to-z-memory-verse-challenge-2012/. Or, if you are like me and have a bunch of Bible verses stored up in your brain memory, try the exercise of recalling them from memory by letter of the alphabet. I’d love to hear the results of your experiment!

Blessings to you my friends,