Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen. We must avoid quick-tempered criticism and furious, power-driven arguments. The same goes for sulking or silent scorn. These are emotional booby traps baited with pride and vengefulness. Our first job is to sidestep the traps. When we are tempted by the bait, we should train ourselves to step back and think. For we can neither think nor act to good purpose until the habit of self-restraint has become automatic.
- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
I keep coming back to this advice, because I have found it to be trustworthy, true and wise. I add of keyboard to the the restraining list because texts and social media make it easy to blast away and hit that send button before thinking. These really are about checking yourself to watch what you say, even if you're saying it in writing. But there is more to the spirit behind this than not blasting someone with our words.
Those who can't control their credit card spending have been given some advice along these lines. The advice is to take the credit cards and put them in something water tight, fill it with water and then stick the whole thing in the freezer, locking the cards in a block of ice. The idea is that they are still there and active in case of emergency but if it's not really an ICE situation that having to wait for the ice to melt or be chipped away to free the cards will slow you down enough that the impulse is checked and you have to think through the purchase. Of course, this doesn't help if you let your browser remember your card info and don't need the cards to go Internet shopping, but the idea is to force a pause, to slow down the response to the impulse until you can think a little more clearly.
It works better than just trying to say no. I remember when I was white knuckling it and trying to stay sober from hour to hour and day to day that I used a similar strategy to keep me going until the miracle that freed me from the obsession to drink and drug happened. I could drink and drug as much as I wanted, satisfy the urges and satiate the craving that drove me to distraction....tomorrow. I wouldn't drink and drug right now, but if I still felt the same tomorrow, then I would do it. The deal I made myself with that is if the feeling faded and I had relief I would restart the clock. The thing is that the really bad, I can't take this, I gotta do something, I'm coming out of my skin impulse to use rarely lasted more than 10 minutes. Sure, it was there in the back of my mind, but the drive I couldn't take never stayed so intense if I didn't give in fairly quickly. It ebbed and flowed like hunger. If I don't eat when I feel like I'm starving, I come to a point where I don't feel hungry anymore. Sure, it will come back, and so did the obsession, but the point is it faded so that I didn't hurt as bad. When it did, the clock stopped. When it returned, I would start the clock back up. I'm not giving in now, but I can do it all I want tomorrow.
Understanding human nature and the tendency we have to get caught up in the heat of the moment is not something new. Some of the passages in the Old Testament that are hardest to take and make little sense in the light of a loving God are because God understands us better than we do. A great example of this can be found in Deuteronomy 21: 10-14. Verse 10 starts off this little section of how the Israelite soldiers where to conduct themselves after winning a battle. God says if you win and you're looting and taking the spoils and you see a woman you want, you can't just take her and force her. OK. So far so good. He then says take her home, shave her head, take her captive clothing away from her and dress her in something else, allow her to mourn and wait 30 days. Then if you still want her, you can force her to be your wife. Um wait. What? God is advocating rape and setting up conditions under which it is acceptable? That's not a loving God!
But God isn't really doing that at all. In that ancient warfare, raping was a part of pillaging the world over. After facing death, sex was a reminder of being alive, and rape was an extension of that power the men felt after slicing and hacking their way through who knew how many men. In order to kill the enemy in such close hand to hand quarters they had to be devalued and dehumanized. They were less than. They were dogs, not men, so that when the light faded from the eyes of the enemy a foot away it didn't also take the will to fight from the soul of the victor. But when you spend hours and days in hand to hand combat with men that you have determined not to treat as human or worthy of consideration, you're also not going to treat those they were protecting and left behind as human. Unfortunately rape was a part of war, and even though there is less face to face fighting and hand to hand killing, it is still far too common a side effect of modern warfare as well.
God knew the way we tick though. He didn't just say no, don't do it. Not because it's OK, but because in the heat of the moment, running high on adrenaline and power no is harder to obey than not now. God understood that if the soldier paused, took a time out, it would be enough. A month of seeing her in normal slave clothing or the everyday clothing of your own people instead of the exotic and different clothing of the enemy, made her less different. It emphasized the similarities with Israelite women. Shaving her head made her less attractive as the stubble returned. Any attraction became less and less about attraction or romance and more obviously was about power and using and abusing her, which is less likely when the adrenaline of battle is gone and life has returned to normal. You spend a month feeding her and taking care of her and watching her mourn her family, it's a lot harder to see her as less than human. So, now that you see her as a human and someone who has the same feelings of brokenness and loss as you, when she isn't as exotic or all that different and you're not so high, you don't want to take her and force yourself upon her, do you? Well, don't profit from her or abuse her any by selling her. Give her enough to journey where she wants to go and re;ease her. But if you do still want her, you can't rape her and throw her away. You have to make her your wife, so while you're waiting 30 days and not going on impulse take the time to think about if you really want her enough to take care of her for the rest of her life and treat her as your wife, According to Jewish priests and sages, the vast majority of these captured women were released in a month.
By saying wait a month until the passion fueling you has had time to subside God wasn't saying rape is OK. He knew thought would return and the insanity impulse would fade. Thousands of women were spared the normal and usual for the times resulting rape that came as being a spoil of war because God knew pausing is easier than stopping cold. But if we pause the passion it's also easier to let it die untouched.
This is true with our words and our anger, if we don't respond to that hurtful or stupid social media post right that second we usually forget about it. It is less of a big deal or not worth hunting up to comment on later. If we don't give in to temptation, impulse, passion and emotions that are reactions without thought or guidance in that moment we have a greater chance of waiting to see what the will of God is in and for the situation.
Take a time out. Let a little time take the edge off the emotions driving us when we are all worked up. Pumped full of adrenaline and endorphins is not the time to begin choosing and deciding. We pause, wait for an intuitive thought from the Spirit and a calmer mind. We act rather than react. We respond to the situation rather than having our impulses and selfish, sinful human nature control us by knee jerking our way through the day. When the emotions get stirred, the passions rise high, the impulses and cravings start to overwhelm don't try to say no in the face of that which you can't control, kill and stop, but take that time out, wait and hold out before doing anything for a second, a minute, an hour, until your mind begins to clear a little, and the blood pounding no longer drums out the voice of the Spirit offering wisdom and guidance and the power to do the right thing. Break the momentum of the impulse and see the tide turn.
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