Just Walk Away

I was in a situation the other day which could have gotten nasty. I am not at liberty to divulge the details. Yet, I faced a choice of either escalating the conflict or draining the conflict. I chose to drain the conflict. Like a swamp.

I gently walked away, excused myself, closed the door, and resumed addressing the problem a day later.

I can't say that I always walk away. There is a time to fight and I am not afraid to...but there are some conflicts that can't be resolved at the time. There are also times I feed a conflict better left to starve.

I know that the Scripture teaches that we should not let the sun go down on our anger. Yet, I don't think that means that we always have to hash things out before the sun falls beneath the horizon. In fact, I think we can actually create more of a problem by trying to address issues when we are: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. That is called HALT. As in stop.

The more of these one has at a given moment, the wiser it is to wait.

The Bible maxim, I believe, should be taken in the spirit it was written rather than a literally interpretation always. I sense Paul's admonition means that we should not nurse our anger because the one giving us the bottle is the Devil himself. Instead, our goal should be to have a spirit of reconciliation as we contemplate our attitudes and actions in light of an ensuing conflict. Letting cooler heads prevail as it is said. Wait and chill. Just walk away.


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