Response or Reaction?
A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly. The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit. A fool despises his father's instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is prudent.
Proverbs 15:1-5 (ESV)
Reaction is not always bad, but it is different than responding. Reaction often tells us where our mind has been, whereas responses usually tell us where our mind should be. Those who practice responding will eventually have proper reactions.
If you follow sports, you hear of "muscle memory." Muscle memory happens when you do a task repeatedly until the movement of that particular body part seems to automatically move properly when called upon. After a baseball player swings the bat a thousand times in practice, the eye-to-hand coordination is ready and willing to move at warp speeds when, in game time, the pitcher delivers a one-hundred-mile-an-hour fastball.
We need to practice our response time, not our reaction time.
Proverbs 15:1-5 (ESV)
Reaction is not always bad, but it is different than responding. Reaction often tells us where our mind has been, whereas responses usually tell us where our mind should be. Those who practice responding will eventually have proper reactions.
If you follow sports, you hear of "muscle memory." Muscle memory happens when you do a task repeatedly until the movement of that particular body part seems to automatically move properly when called upon. After a baseball player swings the bat a thousand times in practice, the eye-to-hand coordination is ready and willing to move at warp speeds when, in game time, the pitcher delivers a one-hundred-mile-an-hour fastball.
We need to practice our response time, not our reaction time.
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