Be Slow to Anger, Quick to Listen, and Fear God

         The title is how my attitude needs to change especially after this past month. All the thoughts, though, came to be this past week when a women from my Bible study was praying over me after having a meal together. I don't know how I got to be so in a hurry and so upset with people that didn't do anything to me. I felt like I've just been a mad person for quite sometime now but I'ml finally breaking free of that feeling. I really can't pin point what got it all started. Maybe being too busy at work and not enough community in my life? Maybe it just seemed like nothing was going to get better? It could have been a lot of things but God puts us in those valleys to teach us things and He he taught me a lot about being single and enjoying it.
           After last night's sermon on singleness, there will be a lot more entries about singleness on here because I heard some great verses and sayings that I would love to write my point of view on and maybe help others in their season of singleness. But right now, this entry is going to be for everyone and it is going to be how to react to others. I love the verse where it says to be slow to anger and quick to listen and I never thought about it in the way I am right now and that is because I've noticed things around me that are happening that I don't noticed because I don't do those things. Then the "Fear God" part of the title is from the famous Proverbs 31 verse 30 about a women should be praised because she fears God more then anything in her life.
            "Be slow to anger and quick to listen". These past few months you could just flip flop that saying around to explain my life. I was quick to anger and slow to listen. I would get mad easily and not listen to anyone else's ideas. My ways were better and we were going with that. I wanted this now and I was going to get it now. If I didn't get those things, I would be angry right away without an explanation of why I was or why I couldn't get those things. I wouldn't listen at all or I would listen and then talk right back in an angry way without even thinking about what I would or had said. The moment came for me a couple of weeks ago and I still replay it in my mind when I needed a reminder of how to do these things.
              There was one moment with a friend of mine that I quite didn't agree on how things were being done but I took a few days to think about it and then wrote my friend back explaining why I did what I did and that maybe I could have done things a little bit differently. I was pushing that friend and wasn't listening to what that friend had to say to me and I should have. I use to be quick and love to listen to people and their life stories and problems but lately I'm just not in the mood. I don't know if I'm too busy with my job or just in a hurry in life wanting things now like I know I can't have now like marriage and a good job. I was never an angry person. You had to do something really bad to get me upset back in college but now lately it seems like the littlest thing would set me off. Things that don't go my way until I remember these 2 verses.
              I wasn't talking to anyone or wasn't in a lot of community groups because I felt like I just couldn't take the listening part of it. I had so much on my mind already with work but yet I missed that part of my life a lot. I missed knowing what was going on in my friends' lives and not being a part of their lives. Not knowing what activities were coming up at church and not having fun because I was so sleepy. I wasn't getting together and talking/listening like I use to back in college. I wasn't learning new things and wasn't growing in God like I should have been. I felt a growth shortage in my spiritual life.
             I really see what that verse means now and I know it was God showing me that He wants me to live this way because the other way is just selfish and that is not Him at all. On fearing God, what better way to live life then to fear Him. You could fear Him while you are going after Him. You might be fearful of what He has for you in the future but it would be worth it if you would just run after Him. The only time that "Fear" is good is when you are using it towards God in a way where you can serve Him in anything and everything you do. I'm starting to "fear God" more and more and it is a good thing because I'm getting out of my comfort zone and moving on to more of a life then I ever thought possible for me.
             Like me right now, I'm fearing Him by starting college classes again this Fall, filling out apartment applications to see if I can move somewhere into a 2 bedroom apartment, and keeping my job and maybe starting something new there in the Fall too. It could also be as simple as becoming a member of the church that I have been going to for the past 3 years this summer or getting into those close friendships that you can really count on. It could also be letting go of things that could need to be let go of for now or forever so you can move onto what God has planned for you.
             God is so good all the time, all the time He is good. He will never let his children down. There is always a reason for what He does in our lives and the way He does it. He will bring people in and out of our lives. He will stop things so we can focus more on Him. I know that is what He is doing for me right at this moment in my life.