Do you see someone who speaks in haste? There's more hope for a fool than for them.

Proverbs 29, verse 20.

Welcome to today's encouragement from our daily bread.

Wise restraint in God was written by Tim Gustafson and read by Stephen Tabor.

Proverbs 29 verses 4 through 11 and also verse 20.

By justice a king gives a country stability, but those who are greedy for bribes tear it down.

Those who flatter their neighbors are spreading nets for their feet.

Evil-doers are snared by their own sin, but the righteous shout for joy and are glad.

The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.

Mockers stir up a city, but the wise turn away anger. If a wise person

goes to court with a fool, the fool rages and scoffs, and there is no peace. The bloodthirsty

hate a person of integrity and seek to kill the upright. Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end.

And now here's verse 20. Do you see someone who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for them.

Wise restraint in God, written by Tim Gustafson.

Following the South's catastrophic loss at Gettysburg in the American Civil War,

General Robert E. Lee led his battered troops back to southern territory. Heavy rains flooded the

Potomac River, blocking his retreat. President Abraham Lincoln urged General George Meade to attack,

but Mead's men were just as weary as Lees. He rested his troops. Lincoln picked up his quill

and wrote a letter in which he confessed he was distressed

immeasurably at Mead's reluctance to pursue Lee. On the envelope are these words in the president's

handwriting. To General Mead never sent or signed. And indeed, it never was. Long before Lincoln, another great leader grasped the importance

of reining in our emotions. Anger, no matter how justified, is a dangerously powerful force.

...