October 21, 2026

Business by the Book

Proverbs 17:14 The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water: therefore leave off contention, before it be meddled with.

Wherever great energy is being dispensed, strife will be present.  Highly productive people expend great amounts of energy.  Energy creates heat, heat causes friction, and friction causes strife.  Strife is unavoidable for it will come.  The way one reacts to strife, however, can diminish the probability of strife growing into contention thereby barring further escalation into areas in which awful and unintended circumstances lurk.

The Word of God teaches the tactics needed to mitigate the adverse effects of strife.  In today’s verse mankind is given a strategy for minimizing strife.  Simply put, leave off contention before it becomes meddlesome.  Leave it.  Walk away, count to ten, wait 24 hours, let it lie, just do whatever is needed to eliminate your part in the strife.  Contention takes two. Be the bigger person and walk away. 

Concerning contention, earlier in the book of Proverbs we read: Only by pride cometh contention… (13:10).  No one has to be right all the time, no one has to have the upper hand all the time, no one can go through life without correction, no one is perfect, no one!  Why then, in the heat of the moment, when strife begins to grow into contention is there such an overwhelming desire to prove ones rightness?  Pride! 

How can strife be left off? A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. (Proverbs 15:1) From pastors, to CEO’s, to presidents, vice presidents, directors, managers, supervisors, all the way to entry level employees and church members, it could be said that most of the strife, conflict, and contention they deal with are because of the words they have used.  Someone once said, “I never am sorry for the things I didn’t say in anger.”  Truer words have never been spoken.

The more energetic, productive, and successful the organization the more strife has a way of making its appearance.  The only organization that has a higher rate of strife and contention is the organization that is doing little or nothing.  But that is another devotion for another day. 

Dr. William Howe