“Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.”

Quick to do this and quick to do that. We must be quick in our businesses so that we don’t dilly dally and let the competition pass us, or lose our momentum. It’s almost an internal forcing function to be quick and go, go, go. Of course there are many hazards with being too quick and not thinking or planning. When we are quick, we can get too caught up in the moment that we miss important signs and signals that we would have been sensitive to had we been more methodical or deliberate. What we are really looking for is the ability to be fast, but at the same time run and finish well the marathon. It’s a hard balance to find. When we are also overly preoccupied with speed we can find ourselves operating backwards and we end up slow to listen, quick to speak and quick to fly off the handle. Many a company or leader who is moving too fast wishes they could take back their first reactions to a problem. How they wish they would have slowed down and not allowed themselves to just fly off the handle. It’s a hard discipline to have, but one that we can all apply to our business; listen, be quiet and be thoughtful before reacting.

James puts it right in in our faces on how we are to handle this in our own lives; “Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.” He is saying that if we do the opposite we are putting ourselves at major risk that we are going to mess something up at work, at home, or anywhere. It seems so simple, but again it is another life lesson that is so hard. Each of these areas that the Bible gives us to self-improve are pointing out that we, by human nature, are flawed. What we must also undestand and do so in accepting His gift, is that we cannot be perfect, but with His assistance, we can overcome and manage the basic flaws that are inside of us. But, we can’t do it without Him. This is why we must come back daily to His Word and talk to God in prayer so that we can see our areas of weakness and then improve for His Glory and sake. This week, we will be given our own tests and we can practice being quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger. We won’t be perfect, but we can be attentive and we can see if we can keep from flying off the handle. With His guidance and support, that is something we can certainly control.

Reference: James 1:19 (New Living Testament)