Tuesday, April 30, 2013

HALT!


I listen to Family radio every  morning on Sirus and I heard something that made so much sense, I felt the need to pass it on!

HALT!

The topic was managing emotions and the Christian's battle with accepting that emotions are not sinful, the way we act and manage in response to them is the moment when we are struggling with sin.  After all, the Bible gives multiple examples of God expressing anger.  So what's up with HALT!?

H-Hungry
A-Angry
L-Lonely
T-Tired

If you are any of the above, HALT!  In other words, stop.  Don't respond, react or make decisions if you are hungry, angry, lonely or tired.  These are the times when the most committed of Christians find themselves doing things that displease God.  They are moments of exceptional vulnerability.  And, they can be fixed.  Eat something healthful or rehydrate.  Decompress and take your offenses to God.  Connect with someone who loves you and will pour the love of Jesus over you.  Rest.  Take positive action to fix which ever of the four you are dealing with before you move on to decision-making and reacting to your frustrations.  I thought this was so wise! 

It also occurred to me, although not part of the lesson, that one must be accountable to check themselves for the four HALT issues.  That takes a little bit of maturity.  When we are feeling hurt and angry we usually are also feeling like the victim of someone else's action.  We want to exercise our right to defend ourselves.  Speaking for myself, there have been occasions when I was so offended that I was almost driven to somehow right the situation to feel back in balance in my heart.  Of course, the truth of it is that I was angry.  Do I always HALT?  Nope.  I've never considered it in such specific terms.  Certainly, I've not consistently examined myself and put myself right before attempting to correct an offense I have experienced.  It's true, if I'm hungry, angry, lonely or tired; I'm at risk for impulsive reactions that truthfully are sinful.

Maybe you've already heard this idea, HALT!  If so, I'd challenge you think about whether or not you take that moment to hold yourself accountable.  I'm going to commit myself to this concept.  I have a theory, that if I do HALT when I should, there will be fewer times that I actually decide to take action.  More importantly, that action will not displease God.

So, hungry/angry/lonely/tired? 

HALT!

1 comment:

Ginger Kauffman said...

It makes great sense. Thanks for sharing this, Sarah. I'm in!