As a leadership training professional an important thing to remember when interacting with others in the business world as well as our personal lives is to remove emotion when making decisions. Emotion clouds judgment and tends to make the interaction all about me as opposed to driving the decision in the best interest of the company or the family unit. For that very reason there is a need to have a “cooling off” period before communicating. There have been and will continue to be many times where I have written a communication 10 different times before sending as it took that many for me to get my senses back and remove the emotion.
“4For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.” – 2 Corinthians 2:4 (ESV)
Paul here has written to the Corinthians as a substitute for a physical meeting. You can see in the wording of this verse that he is struggling with his emotions and wants to assure them that he loves them dearly. He demonstrates great restraint with them and simply writes from the heart to provide instruction without the emotional judgment that would be if he had been there in person.
Talk about showing his mercy. Paul, as we know, could be a ruthless man. He was if we remember “Saul of Tarsus” and was out arresting the disciples of Jesus at one point in his life. “Arresting” in biblical times was not asking someone to come down to the station as they were caught red handed in tax evasion, it was a violent act of brutality and overt acts. Because Paul was aware of his nature, he elected to simply send another with a letter to explain his position. It was through this mercy that Paul demonstrated an abundance of love to the Corinthians and spared them the wrath that he was sure would come as he was filled with so much emotion.
I have to continually remind myself to remove the emotion from the more heightened interactions to be sure that I am able to demonstrate my abundant love through mercy provided by Christ.
When something comes up, how do your react? Are you one that allows your emotion to overcome your sensibilities and you “fly off the handle”? Are you able to control your emotion and provide mercy to demonstrate your abundant love for others?
Trevor's Thoughts 