A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if you rescue him, you will have to do it again (Proverbs 19:19).

I'm a father and a pastor.  I don't like to see people in trouble.  My natural instinct in times of difficulty is to prevent, protect, and pull people out of the troublesome situation as quickly as possible.  Some might even say I've got something of a complex:  an obsessive compulsion to play the part of the Knight in Shining Armor -- rescuing damsels (and dukes) in distress.  And it's (at least partially) true!  I'd much rather be the winsome hero saying, "Careful there, sonny.  It's a good thing I was here to save you this time, but let's not let that happen again, OK, champ?" -- as opposed to the crotchety old geezer saying, "He-he, that'll teach you, young-un!  You really shoulda known better, chump."  It feels like the more loving thing to do.  The more "Christian" thing to do.

But here in Proverbs 19:19, we encounter a different biblical directive for these types of situations.  And contrary to my natural intuition, it seems like we're being instructed put aside the role of the winsome Knight in Shining Armor in order to play the role of the crotchety old geezer instead!  This is, perhaps, a rather incomplete way to look at things.  Bad marketing, if you will.  But it's how I can feel sometimes...

Even so, I recognize the truth and wisdom of Proverbs 19:19's instructions for dealing with hot-tempered people who tend to repeatedly get themselves into trouble.  My years of fatherly and pastorly experience have worked together to teach me exactly what wise King Solomon explains here so succinctly:  "A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if you rescue him, you will have to do it again."  When a hot-tempered person is rescued from the consequences of his or her actions -- the person is enabled and, in effect, encouraged to give their emotions full rein in the future.  And as people grow bigger, stronger, with broader networks of relationships -- the negative consequences of unchecked emotional outbursts become bigger, stronger, and broader.  Like I said, I now know this from personal experience.  Rescuing a hot-tempered person typically only leads to more and more rescues -- until the consequences are ultimately too great to be mitigated.

So this is what I've learned from the fatherly and pastorly levels.  Mercy is good.  Grace is essential.  But before mercy and grace are blindly applied, consideration must be given for the emotional state of the offender / victim of the outburst.  Is the problem caused by hot-headedness?  Or was it an honest mistake?  Is there something that can be learned from the situation, by an allowance for some degree of natural consequences?  Will my "assistance" in this situation create any further problems down the road?  Once these questions are considered, appropriate action can be taken -- which often includes some mixture of natural consequences, mercy, and grace.  Such situations are never an easy fix.  But if we don't carefully consider the long-term trajectory of such circumstances, then the situation will often continue recurring and intensifying until it consumes us all.