Wormwood in the Honey

Be patient and understanding, and you will rule over every evil deed and do everything that is right. For if you are patient, the Holy Spirit that lives in you will be clean. It will not be darkened by any other evil spirit; living in a wide open place it will be glad and rejoice together with the vessel it lives in, and it will serve God with great cheerfulness, having abundance within itself. [a]

But if a quick temper turns up, the Holy Spirit — a delicate thing — is at once crowded into a tight space. It has no clean room, and it looks to leave the place. It is choked by the evil spirit; it has no room to serve the Lord the way it wants to, and the quick temper defiles it. For the Lord lives in patience, and the devil lives in a quick temper. So when both spirits live in the same place, that is harmful and evil for the person they live in.

Take the tiniest scrap of wormwood and drop it into a jar of honey — is the whole of the honey not ruined? All that honey is lost because of the smallest bit of wormwood, and the wormwood destroys the sweetness of the honey. It no longer finds the same favor with its owner, because it has turned bitter and its use is gone. But if the wormwood is not thrown into the honey, the honey is found sweet and stays useful to its owner.

You see, then, that patience is sweeter than honey and useful to the Lord, and he lives in it. A quick temper is bitter and useless. So if a quick temper is mixed into patience, the patience is defiled, and the appeal it makes is no longer of any use to God.

Sir, I would like to know what a quick temper actually does, so that I can guard myself against it. Indeed — if you and your household do not guard yourselves against it, you have lost all your hope. So guard yourself against it. I am with you. And everyone who repents with a whole heart will keep away from it, for I will be with them and I will keep them safe. They were all counted righteous by the most honored angel.

Listen now to what a quick temper does — how evil it is, how it wrecks my servants by its working, and how it leads them away from righteousness. It does not lead astray those who are full of faith; it cannot work on them at all, because my power is with them. The ones it leads astray are the empty and the double-minded. [j]

When it sees people like that living settled and calm, it forces its way into that person’s heart, and over nothing at all the man or the woman turns bitter — over the business of daily life, over food, over some petty quibble, over a friend, over what was given or received, over silly matters like these. All of it is foolish and empty and senseless and no use at all to God’s servants.

But patience is great and strong. It has power, solid power, and it thrives in a wide open space — cheerful, glad, free from worry, glorifying the Lord at every moment, with nothing bitter in it, staying gentle and quiet the whole way through. This patience lives with those whose faith is whole.

A quick temper, on the other hand, is first of all foolish — flighty and senseless. Then out of the foolishness comes bitterness, and out of the bitterness rage, and out of the rage anger, and out of the anger a settled fury. And this settled fury, put together out of so many evils, becomes a great sin that cannot be cured.

For when these spirits live in one jar, where the Holy Spirit is living too, the jar cannot hold them; it overflows. So the delicate Spirit, not used to living with an evil spirit or with hardness, moves out of a person like that and looks for somewhere to live with gentleness and quiet. Then, once it has left the person it was living in, that person is emptied of the righteous Spirit; and from then on, filled with the evil spirits, he is unsettled in everything he does, dragged this way and that by the evil spirits, and blinded to any good thought at all. This is what happens to everyone with a quick temper.

So keep away from a quick temper, that most evil spirit. Put on patience instead, and stand against quick temper and bitterness, and you will be found in the company of the dignity the Lord loves. See to it, then, that you never let this command slip your mind. If you master this command, you will be able to keep the rest of the commands I am going to give you. Be strong in them, and take strength — and let everyone take strength who wants to walk in them.