Anger. It’s one of our natural responses to things we don’t like. It is an emotion that we all deal with for various reasons. ‘Anger’ is one letter short of ‘Danger.’ For good reason. When anger shows up there is a lot of danger because we are tempted to act on that anger in ways that God doesn’t want us to.
We’re all going to get upset and frustrated at times. But the critical thing is how we choose to act when we get angry. When we get angry at someone we tend to want to do them harm either physically or emotionally. We want to cuss and scream. We want to shut people out. We want to talk bad about that person. We want to hold a grudge and give a cold shoulder. We don’t want to forgive. There are many ungodly actions that anger can lead to. But we have to ask ourselves what is right in God’s eyes. How does He want me to respond when I’m angry? What does God tell us about anger?
In Genesis 4, Cain shows us that anger is an open door for Satan to come in and for sin to overtake us. But as God told Cain, we too must overcome it. David said in Psalm 4:4 to “be angry, and do not sin.” Paul too said in Ephesians 4:26-27, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” James reminds us in James 1:20 that “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”
Anger is real. It is natural. But we have to overcome it. We have to be in control of our emotions and not let our emotions be in control of us. Just because I may not be happy about something or it hurts my feelings or it upsets me doesn’t mean that we can take our anger out any way we want to. Be angry but do not sin. Man’s anger does not produce the righteousness of God. We have to find ways to overcome our anger. To deal with it in self-control. Overcome anger with good. Do not be overcome by anger. It’s going to be hard but with God it’s not impossible.
Have you gotten angry today? If so, how have you acted on it? How should you act on it? Are you gonna be ready to handle your anger when it is aroused another day? Anger is common. But we are not to act on it in a common way.
A Cord of Blue 