Mercy v Judgment

Awhile back, I wrote about having a temper. Indeed, I have been known to be pretty explosive at work from time to time. Several months ago, I really started to feel convicted about this and began a long process of simmering down. Actually, one of my coworkers recently commented about significant improvement in this area. (Enter pride.) So of course, I start thinking about how awesome of a job I had done at improving my temperament. (Right Todd, go ahead and keep telling yourself that.) You can probably see where this is going. Yesterday, I totally mis-read a situation and it escalated into a pretty ugly duel of words. I immediately apologized to one of the observers and approached the "opponent" this morning to ask for forgiveness.

Last night, I open up my devotional (just purchased on Saturday) and turn to April 21. The title for the day is Mercy's Victory. I'm thinking, God, this has to be some kind of bad joke. The featured verse is James 2:13, "Mercy triumphs over judgment!" God, help me to let mercy triumph over indignation. Let mercy triumph over outrage. Let mercy triump over judgment.