Saturday Scripture Gold with Bibi: Bring Your Anger to the Lord

Welcome, and thank you for joining me today!

Jim Taylor in Currents tells the following story about his friend, Ralph Milton: One morning Ralph woke up at five o'clock to a noise that sounded like someone repairing boilers on his roof. Still in his pajamas, he went into the back yard to investigate. He found a woodpecker on the TV antenna, "pounding its little brains out on the metal pole."

Angry at the little creature who ruined his sleep, Ralph picked up a rock and threw it. The rock sailed over the house, and he heard a distant crash as it hit the car. In utter disgust, Ralph took a vicious kick at a clod of dirt, only to remember -- too late -- that he was still in his bare feet. Uncontrolled anger, as Ralph leaned, can sometimes be its own reward.

Question: "What makes YOU angry, and is that a good thing or a bad one?"

The ten root words for anger appear 259 times in the Bible, and if you add in the references to rage or violence or other synonyms, you are well over 400 references in no time at all. One of the Hebrew root words means "nostril" or "nose," so when it says God is slow to anger it literally says God is "long of nose." Other words refer to "heat like the sun's heat" or to "the poison of serpents." In the Bible, anger is a smelly, nasty thing.

But don't we also know anger as a normal human emotion? Isn't it a logical reaction to pain or injury and perhaps to fear and even danger? Aren't there gender issues with the expression of anger? Men are allowed to show it and women not so much so. Or in some contexts is it the exact opposite? Aren't there also victim and perpetrator issues with this emotion? That is, doesn't the appropriate anger that reacts to the pain of injury help a victim to become a survivor in many instances? Doesn't anger equalize imbalanced power situations?

You could add a whole list of questions to the ones I've asked. And you could notice that in my words and in our culture, the lines between anger, outrage, rage, and violence get blurred, or perhaps I should say that in addition to getting blurred, they exist on a continuum that is not always clearly marked. Anger appears in many forms, and it means many things.

The fact is we all get angry from time to time. The problem is we don’t always control our anger as we should. Often, our anger controls us and before we know it, our anger has caused devastation and destruction on a scale we never imagined.  Someone said, “Anger like fire, finally dies out - but only after leaving a path of destruction.”

That is the danger of anger. That is why the Bible has much to say to the believer about controlling the temper. Allow me to present a few Bible verses that touch on this issue: Ephesians 4:26; Psalm 37:8; Proverbs 14:29; Proverbs 19:11; Ecclesiastes 5:22.

Although Alexander the Great conquered the known world, he couldn't conquer his own temper. On one occasion, Cletus, a childhood friend and a general in Alexander's army, became drunk and insulted the leader in front of his men. Alexander became enraged and hurled a spear at Cletus, intending merely to scare him. Instead, the spear killed Alexander's life-long friend. Remorse engulfed Alexander as he assessed the destruction of his uncontrollable anger. The lesson here is: If we don't control our anger, it will control us! 

We need to bring our anger to the Lord and ask Him to help us act like Him toward those who offend us. Some of us need to get before the Lord today and ask for help, because we know that we might not be angry right now, but it could happen before the day is done. And, we know that when anger comes, we will need God’s help to respond properly. Others have been simmering in your own anger for quite a while now. The best thing you can do is get to the Lord and ask Him to turn down the heat in your heart before you have a melt down.

I know that most of us don't like to seek help for something like this. But, here are the facts; we are all cut from the same cloth. We all have problems with anger from time to time. The best thing we can ever do is yield to our feelings, our rights, and our anger to the the Lord. If He has used today's message to speak to your heart, I challenge you to get before Him and get the help you need!

Scripture: Proverbs 29:11; James 1:20; Ecclesiastes 7:9; Proverbs 15:1; James 4:1-2; Proverbs 16:32

Now, let's pray...

O Father, give us the humility which realizes its ignorance, admits its mistakes, recognizes its need, welcomes advice, accepts rebuke. Help us always to praise rather than to criticize, to sympathize rather than to discourage, to build rather than to destroy, and to think of people at their best rather than at their worst. This we ask for in thy name's sake. Amen

Until next time...

Have a blessed week! 

Bibi