Fighting never makes it better

Have you ever heard yourself say something and cringed inside? I have. When I’m overly tired or stressed out, sometimes my mouth runs away with me. I have a sarcastic streak too, which can be very funny when it isn’t being used for the forces of evil.

I’ve learned, firsthand, the truth of today’s verse.

A tiger showing his teeth at the Sedgwick County Zoo, Wichita, KS

Today’s verse is Proverbs 15:1.

A gentle answer deflects anger,
    but harsh words make tempers flare.

People don’t like fighting. Maybe they like arguing or disagreements, and arguing and disagreement are part of every healthy relationship, whether you’re best friends or married or even family. But from my experience, people don’t like a real fight, especially between two people who care about each other.

So why does it feel like we go out of our way to start fights sometimes? Our culture has certainly dramatized relationships to the point where people like to see domestic strife on the television, but in real life it’s not always exciting or romantic–it’s miserable.

Whatever kind of relationship you’re in, it’s important to understand that answering a cruel word with more cruel words will only make a situation worse. If the person who started the fight is already that upset, fighting back isn’t going to scare them. It’s just going to make them angrier.

Yes, it’s true that some people just want to fight. Some people are just angry as a general rule. But generally speaking even people who start fights don’t really want to fight. There’s usually something else causing their problem, and they’re either too scared or too insecure to talk about it openly.

So what do we do? What can we do? It’s hard to stay calm when someone comes at us in a fighting mood, but I promise if you refuse to engage with them like they’ll run out of steam. And most of the time, if you’re close enough friends, they’ll tell you what’s really going on. Or they’ll give you enough clues that you can figure it out yourself.

And if you’re the offender–well, first pray that you have friends close enough who understand your moods. Again, when I get stressed out or really tired, I say things I don’t mean. Or I say things in ways that I don’t mean. And I am so very fortunate to have friends who understand that and forgive me for my harsh tone.

The point is, whether you’re the offender or the victim, harsh words never help anything. They may make you feel slightly better when you’re saying them, but that good feeling only lasts until the fight starts.

So when you’re tempted to snap back, when you’re tempted to say something you know you shouldn’t, when you’re tempted to release your frustration in the form of harsh words, don’t. It’s not worth it. Yes, talk to someone. Yes, be open and real about what you’re feeling. But don’t turn someone else into the focal point of your frustrations. And don’t fool yourself into thinking that meeting cruel words for cruel words will solve anything.

Answer cruel words gently. And if that doesn’t work, if the person you’re talking to doesn’t calm down, stop the conversation or leave. If he or she is that upset, nothing you can say will make it better until they calm down on their own.

Fighting won’t solve the problem. Fighting only hurts feelings and separates friends, and I don’t know about you, but that’s not something I ever want to do.

It takes two to stay angry.

We live in an angry world. Have you noticed that? Everyone is angry. Everyone has a short temper. We all lose patience with each other far more easily than we should, and there’s always someone to blame.

Anger isn’t wrong on its own, of course. Anger itself isn’t a sin. On the contrary, anger is useful in some instances to spur action. There are times when anger is necessary. Even Jesus got angry. But anger is one of those emotions you have to guard very carefully because what we tend to do as a result of our anger is often sinful. So, yes, anger can be useful in small doses, but who wants to live that way?

How do we survive in an angry world full of angry people? Do you answer anger with anger?

Most of the anger people in our world are feeling right now isn’t useful anger. It’s self-absorbed indignation. It’s hatred or rage because they feel they’ve been mistreated. Or they feel like life isn’t treating them fairly. Or its directed at a person or a people group. Or it’s anger for the sake of anger.

Some people just like to fight. And I’m not talking about cheerful debate. I mean out-and-out quarrelling. And they’re not happy until they can have a good old-fashioned knock-down, drag-out fight.

I try to stay away from people like that. But what happens when avoidance doesn’t work? What happens when you work with someone who likes to fight? What happens when you live with someone who likes to fight? What do you do then?

Centurea flower – Glen Eyrie, Colorado Springs, CO

Today’s verse is Proverbs 15:1.

A gentle answer deflects anger,
    but harsh words make tempers flare.

This is one of those verses that doesn’t really make sense straight off the bat. Frankly, from our perspective, if you answer an angry person with kind words, you’re going to be steamrolled. They will just roll you over and keep going, and all you will have accomplished is to provide them with a target.

Right? Has anyone else ever thought that about this verse?

But here’s the thing about human relationships: it takes two.

Relationships, whether they are romantic or friendships or familial or whatever, require that at least two people interact with each other. That’s what a relationship is. If you’re just by yourself, that’s not a relationship. You have to have someone else with you. Kind of like you can’t have a real conversation by yourself (unless you’re an author, and you’re just talking to yourself … but even then you likely are creating a conversation between two characters).

If you start a conversation with someone, the tone of that conversation doesn’t just depend on one person. It depends on both of you.

If both of you are saying kind things to each other, the tone will remain kind (and probably very mushy). If both of you are yelling at each other in anger, you both will continue to be angry. But if one person is angry, and the other remains calm and kind, eventually the anger will run out.

A speaker at a conference I attended said that the limit that one person can yell at another person without response is two minutes. Granted, that two minutes will feel like an eternity, but that’s as long as they can go without having someone yell back.

Anger is exhausting, emotionally and physically. And if there’s no anger in response, it starves. If someone pushes you and you push back, you will feed each others’ motion indefinitely. But if only one of you is pushing, eventually they’ll run out of steam. And they’ll stop.

And it’s the same thing with anger.

So if someone yells at you, don’t yell back. If someone pushes you (emotionally or physically), don’t push back, although if they physically push you, you might want to consider calling the police. Obviously I’m not talking about issues of domestic violence. That’s another topic altogether.

But in normal interpersonal relationships, answer angry words with kind words. It’s difficult. It’s not instinctive. Instinct is to snap back. But instincts are usually sinful because we are sinful people. Don’t run away from it. Yes, step back from it, but always answer, always give a reason for why you’re stepping back and be kind about it. And if see how long that anger lasts.

Pyro

I come from a family of pyros. From a very young age, I’ve always had a fascination with fire. I have always loved the Fourth of July too, and though I enjoy it for its patriotic themes, what I really like the most is the firecrackers. I can still remember being very young and visiting my cousins in Arkansas, setting off fire crackers in their driveway. My cousin Phillip set off a bottle rocket that did some crazy stuff and ended up in the barn. It scared his 4-H market lamb to death, but we all thought it was hilarious.

But I think one of my earliest memories about fire came from a camping trip we took. I don’t remember how old I was, but we were camping in Colorado. We’d found a camp site and we had all worked together to set the tent up. Andy and I went to gather wood for the fire, and when we brought it back, Dad got the fire going. And then, he’d sit there with the charcoal lighter fluid and occasionally would squirt some into the already burning fire. The results was always exciting. The fire would leap up and make a wooshing sound. It was incredible to watch.

Well, I thought about this when I read the verse for today.

Proverbs 15:1

A gentle answer deflects anger,
      but harsh words make tempers flare.

I’ve learned over time how true this is. It doesn’t matter who I’m talking to, what we’re talking about, or where I am holding a conversation; if you deal harsh words to someone, they will respond in kind. It’s amazing to me too that if someone is already angry, speaking angrily to them won’t resolve the situation either. It just makes it worse.

And I speak from personal experience about being angry and having angry words make me angrier than before. Sometimes I can just be irritated or frustrated, and all it takes is someone being harsh or negative around me, and my irritation turns to outright anger.

But it’s fascinating to watch the result of kind words. I’ve seen it before. I’ve done it before. I’ve had it done to me. I can be raging mad, and all someone has to do is speak to me softly, logically, kindly and all that anger melts away. And pretty soon, I have a hard time remembering what I was even angry about.

It’s just like squirting charcoal starter on a campfire. If you’ve got a fire already going, squirting something flammable on it isn’t going to make it burn less. If someone is already angry, speaking angrily to them isn’t going to make them happy again. Anger + Anger = a big stinkin’ fight.

But if someone is angry, and you speak gently to them, it’s more likely that they’ll calm down. Maybe it doesn’t work in every case, but it’s certainly better to answer anger with serenity. It keeps you calm, and most of the time it helps the other person to be calm too.

It’s a good reminder for our world and our lives today, where people seem to be angrier than ever about everything. Anger can be useful but not in this context. Sometimes anger is just anger, and no rational person wants to be angry all the time.