Daily Devotional, Sept 22, 2023 The slow cooker
"He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city." Proverbs 16:32
One of the most useful small appliances in a modern kitchen is the slow cooker. As its name suggests, it cooks food slowly to bring out more flavor, make the meat more tender without having to put in much effort. But since its cooking time usually ranges from four to eight hours, some think twice about buying it because of worries about power consumption.
When it comes to getting angry, we Christians are being called to emulate the slow cooker. We should keep our tempers in check, remain calm and not stay at boiling point so that we can remain righteous. In his Epistle, the Disciple James reminded early Christians to refrain from getting angry right away “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” James 1:19-20.
Like a slow cooker that tenderises meat, a slow-to-anger Christian exhibits tenderness. Tender hearts are patient hearts that do not get mad right away. And while great dishes may require a lot of ingredients, once all these ingredients are prepared, all the cook has to do is to program the slow cooker and it will produce results without too much leg work.
The preparation of ingredients is akin to having the spiritual discipline required of a good Christian. Once the discipline is in place, it becomes natural for the Christian to stick to his spiritual routines like prayer, bible reading, worshiping, and studying the Word of God with fellow believers. This spiritual discipline brings forth good deeds as the Christian’s way of thanking the Lord for the mercy he received. Once a Christian reaches this point, being slow to anger is relatively easy to achieve as his eyes are opened to the fact that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is slow to get angry at us in spite of our failures and weaknesses.
Another fact about slow cookers is that surprisingly it does not use much electricity even if it stays turned on for the whole day. Comparisons between an electric oven and a slow cooker reveal that the energy consumed for using an electric oven for one hour, is similar to operating the slow cooker for close to 16 hours.
When it comes to kindness and humility– it does not also take much energy for a person to be calm, stay still and be quiet during tense situations. Whereas, a hot headed angry person would need so much energy to shout, go ballistic, and throw a tantrum. Spreading rumors and negativity after getting into a stressful situation with another person, also takes a lot of time and effort, compared to just being quiet and spending time to pray, and waiting for the best time to reach out to the other party.
Being slow to anger may be a challenging feat for most people, but it is not impossible to do. The bible does not disallow us to feel angry since it is a human emotion, but what it just says is for us to not act on the anger and not let it brood “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26-27).
Thank you for reading through our devotional today. I invite you to ponder on Ephesians 4:25-32 to dig deeper on today’s topic.
Reflection Question: Do you get angry easily? How can God’s word help you put on effort to become slow to anger?
Conversation with the Lord: Heavenly Father, thank you for opening my eyes to your words, and how you want me to deal with stressful situations in my life. Grant me the strength to stay calm in the midst of chaos and in situations that spur my anger, so that I could be more like you. Amen.