Ever had a time when you're angry. I mean a right proper anger for absolutely no reason? Sometimes you might be able to justify getting angry. Maybe the cashier isn't listening to your complaint for the 3rd time. Maybe your husband and kids are just being that annoying. Maybe your mother is asking for something else. Maybe your co-worker just won't shut up about her perfect life. Sometimes though you might just find yourself angry for no reason or at least no know reason that you can phantom. So you all the sudden have become the jerk we all make fun of. You know the one, the one that yells at the poor cashier for no reason, or the waitress for getting the order wrong. Or the jerk who makes fun of the co-worker with the perfect life, Your're the one lashing out and yelling at someone who in all fairness probably didn't deserve it like your husband, kids, or mother.
You are the one who can't find anything positive about the day, month, year. And before you know it you are the one sitting all alone at lunch festering in your anger, hating the world even more, and blaming them for the hand you've been dealt after all they couldn't possibly understand what you are going through.
Who would want to talk to you I mean if they do they run the risk of getting an earful of complaints, yelling, or you dragging them into an argument that no one asked for. Others may start to avoid you or worse you start to attract "that crowd" you know the one I am talking about. The ones just like you that can't find anything good to say about anything. So all you do is talk about the negative things over and over working yourselves up into a frenzy as you compare who has it worse. After all it's easier to join in on negativity then it is to find something positive.
Then there comes a point when you realize maybe this is God's fault or heck maybe you were already there. So you start questioning Him and His "almighty glory" where are you when I need you? How come you never seem to help me? Why do good people always seem to be the ones suffering?
Any of this sound familiar...
If it doesn't you are one lucky human being and I applaud you. For the others welcome to the club
The Bible is usually helpful on situations like this if we can catch it early enough in our anger to research, but usually by the time we realize we need to look at truth we maybe too far gone to look through scripture to help us. The thing about the bible that can be frustrating is it approaches anger in 2 ways. It gives us examples of God's anger and how he reacts to anger to give us a proper role model to follow and it gives us examples of human anger and what not to do to learn from. Personally I learn better from other's experiences as I am likely to have done them as well. That being said in anger I also like to see the right way to approach a situation since it feels a time that my anger will just flare up out of no where.
What was hard about this topic to write was where to begin. After all I have anger daily either through stress, sadness or worry which I found to be funny. A lot of my emotions that I experience will tie back to anger. If you make me feel unsafe or scared you will see angry Sara. If you make me worry about you angry Sara again. If I am stressed dear me angry Sara
It's starting to sound like I am always angry but I think that my emotions lead to anger as a first response, almost like my body doesn't know how to process the others. Weird I know, but there it is. Psalms 4 helps me to feel less weird in this. It shows us that anger in itself is not a sin, but can lead up to sin by our actions. When you think about that it makes perfect sense. A good friend has told me numerous times that emotions are neither good nor bad they are just like colors. And if you think about it like that anger is an emotion, one that God has as well, therefore the emotion of anger isn't bad. What gets people in the bible in trouble and us in life is how we handle that anger. It's the lashing out, the drinking, the yelling, cussing, and the fighting that becomes the sinful part of anger. Psalms 4 shows us that David's anger is actually driven from anxiety, worry and stress: holy frijoles batman it's like David and I are way too similar at times.
But unlike me David doesn't react by yelling at others instead in Psalms 4 he reminds us to examine our own hearts and be silent, then to trust in the Lord. Which Paul then takes and carries into Ephesians 4:26 "In your anger do not sin do not let the sun set while you are still angry". The first part being very important do not sin in your anger. The 2nd half I use to wrestle with a lot until an older woman at church pointed out an important thing to me, "it's because of the verse that immediately follows. If you allow your anger to fester while you sleep you give the devil a foothold and you have something to hold on to the next morning never allowing peace to enter in and heal the wound." That lady was very clever.
That's why it will feel like you are angry all the time non-stop.
If we are not taking the time to examine our hearts in silence to see what is really the reason we are angry the root cause of our anger if you will. We will have no way to turn to ask God to help us with it. If we are saying Lord take this crazy co-worker out of my life because they make me angry it doesn't really make sense. Let's say God does and a new co-worker comes in, what's to say that new person wouldn't make you just as angry or worse more angry? Instead of asking for the superficial part of the anger we need to examine our heart and find the root of the anger then ask God to help us with it. You can fix the superficial parts are day and never get rid of the anger. It isn't until you get to the root that you will start to feel better. The goal of examining your heart is to help you and the Lord work on it together. That then allows you to build up TRUST with HIM to help us with not only everyday anger, but eventually everyday issues. The sooner we do that the sooner we stop the festering of the wound. The festering of worry, anxiety, stress, hurt, it will have no place to grow because we aren't allowing it gain a foothold within us.
The interesting part about the enemy getting a foothold when we allow our anger to fester or go to sleep with it is this: The bible address feet and why they are important in Ephesians again and it's when we put on the full armor of Christ. Most of us know what this is so I will skip the parts not important to this. But the part that sticks out to the enemy gaining a foothold on us is this: A foothold is a place or support for the feet where a person may stand or walk securely per the dictionary... yet our feet is where the readiness that comes from the gospel of PEACE is located. When we carry around anger we no longer have peace. Please let that soak in for a minute the reason the anger festers the reason we lash out is our peace has been stolen by the enemy who we have allowed to gain a foothold in our lives. HE HAS STOLEN YOUR PEACE WITH YOUR PERMISSION and done so by your anger. To add insult to injury he is helping you to hold on to it by feeding you lies to "justify" your anger. The longer you allow that anger to fester and grow the longer the enemy can rob you of your peace.
When we hold onto emotions that cause sin and never look at the root cause instead allow those emotions to let us sin we lose our peace we give the enemy power and we lose control. That's why giving the enemy a foothold in our lives is such a scary thing.
Do not let the sun set in your anger. It's time to get back our PEACE and our freedom. TRUST IN THE LORD and ask for help.
