Devotional

Leading the Aggressive Through Listening: Ignore Insults (Proverbs 12:16)

What is your first reaction to an insult? Do you reciprocate or debate its validity?

The aggressive designs and deploys an insult to generate a reaction — one that gives him control. When we do not react, the insult is defused. We must ignore insults, rather than immediately showing our annoyance.

Solomon taught: “A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult” (Proverbs 12:16).

Ignoring an insult includes maintaining listening body posture and attentive facial expressions as we deflect flaming arrows soaring our way. Jonathan ignored his father King Saul’s insult.

Next time an aggressive insults you, ignore it, deflecting his demeaning words like a shield. Paul said that we should take up the shield of faith that allows us to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one (Ephesians 6:16).

Episode 76: Leading The Aggressive Through Listening from mitchkrusetv on Vimeo.