Daily Devotional
Do You Bottle Up Hurt?

April 23, 2022

Ponder This

Years ago, many people collected trading stamps in a little book with the hope that the stamps would gain value over time. That’s the way a lot of marriages falter. Your spouse hurts you, put it in the book. Late for dinner, put it in the book. Forgot your anniversary, put it in the book. After a while, you don’t deal with things as they come up. And one day, there’s an explosion. A husband or wife comes to cash in all the stamps, and both spouses wonder, how did all of this happen? But they have failed to do what the Bible says—to deal with things as they come up when they’re small and can be addressed. One trading stamp is not so big. It can be dealt with. Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath! And when you do address these things as they come up, stick to the subject. Don’t attack one another; attack the problem.

• Have you experienced times when you “cashed in” your collection of hurts with another person? What was the result?
• What difference has it made for you when you have addressed individual problems as they arose instead of saving them up over time?

Practice This

Have a conversation with someone who you have saved up hurts from. By God’s grace, clear the air in that relationship as much as it depends on you.