Friday!

Proverbs!

For as the churning of milk produces butter and as punching the nose produces blood,

so stirring up anger produces strife.

Proverbs 30:33 NET

"Churning", "punching", and "stirring up" are actually the same word in the Hebrew:

"mits"

This word is about extracting juice from grapes, about pressure that inevitably produces what is inside.

To make sense of that it is translated as churning of milk inevitably produces butter, punching someones nose inevitably causes bleeding, and the heart that intentionally stirs up anger produces ongoing disputes, lawsuits, issues between people that drag on.

Contention.

Strife.

Anger is such an interesting thing. It tells us that something is wrong. 

Anger can be the fuel to motivate us towards change, towards righting wrongs, towards justice. 

But just like the milk was OK being milk, and my nose was working fine, anger doesn't need to be stirred up, to be punched, to be brought to life by us. When we don't name what's underneath our anger, the injustice, the grief, and especially the fear, anger becomes a weapon to attack, to blame, and then we have strife.

Contention.

Unresolved.

And eventually unresovlable relationships.

The thing this proverb is inviting us to let slide is the intentional stirring up of anger that leads inevitably to hurt & broken relationships

#proverbs 

#wisdom

#somethingtochewon