“If
you are angry, don’t sin by nursing your grudge. Don’t let the sun go down with
you still angry—get over it quickly; for when you are angry, you give a mighty
foothold to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26-27, LB).
It
can start from the smallest of things such as simple word, an awkward glance, a
slight motion of the eyes, and even from a long distant remembrance of critical
remark. It can come from large incidents such as a string of explicit sentences
in a castigating rebuke, a demeaning glare meant to dismiss us or our inherent value
as a person, a full force movement or some event around us and even from the
recollection of a past memory of bitter hurt and trauma. Anger can be triggered
in the minutest of moments from slight ill treatment and regard or it can come
from the something we read or see. Anger
can also come as a bolt of high powered voltage in response to any interaction,
situation or event.
Anger
as an emotion is innate in all of us, as surely as we can be happy. Sometimes
anger is positive, for example when anger at injustice; managed and directed leads
us to action. Yet anger in each of us: unmanaged, not dealt with, uncontrolled,
undirected and not understood, can burn, hurt and endanger us in numerous ways
in our business, professional, interpersonal, personal and familial relationships.
Anger denied, uncontrolled or unmanaged can stagger, consume and devastate us
in the psychological, social, physical and spiritual realms of our functioning
and living.
Our
unique personalities and our individual physiologies make some people more susceptible
to anger and enable others to release most feeling of anger. Our
responses to anger are compounded in each of us by our emotions and physical
energies on any given day. The input of each day can trigger flare ups or
negate the impulses in each of us to move from the feelings of anger to allowing
it to escalate into damage in us or towards others.
Anger
as an emotion is never denied in the Scriptures but the sin of letting the fire
of anger engulf us, entangle us and consume us and the actions coming out of anger are readily condemned. Any intent
and any action that would hurt or maim another person is sin. Any anger left to fester, grow, intensify and
rage out of control will burn us from within. We need to understand anger as a
fire. Anger like a fire can start from the smallest of sparks. Anger like a fire
can burn us from within and if given attention as oxygenated fuel can become a engulfing
blaze damaging us and those around us. The
truth is simple; anger comes to all of us, but we should never allow our anger lead us in the direction of sin.
“This
you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to
speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness
of God” (James 1:19-20, NIV).
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