Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading, titled Quick to Listen, was written by Katera Patton.

I felt my heart rate increase as I opened my mouth to refute the charges a dear friend was leveling against me.

What I had posted online had nothing to do with her as she implied. But before I replied, I whispered a prayer.

I then calmed down and heard what she was saying and the hurt behind her words. It was clear that this

went deeper than the surface. My friend was hurting,

in my need to defend myself dissolved as I chose to help her address her pain.

During this conversation, I learned what James meant when he urged us to be quick to listen,

slow to speak, and slow to become angry.

Listening can help us hear what may be behind the words

and to avoid anger that does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

It allows us to hear the heart of the speaker.

I think stopping and praying helped me greatly with my friend. I became much more sensitive to her words

rather than my own offense. Perhaps if I hadn't stopped to pray, I would have fired back my thoughts

and shared how offended I was. And while I haven't always gotten the instruction James outlines

right that day, I think I did.

Stopping to whisper a prayer before allowing anger and offense to take a hold of me was the key to listening quickly and speaking slowly.

I pray that God will give me the wisdom to do this more often.

Today's our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from James Chapter 1, verses 18 through 20.

He chose to give us birth through the Word of Truth,

that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this.

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