Everybody has to deal with anger from time to time. But what’s the best way to handle it? Many times, anger is the way in which we express our dissatisfaction with life. And sometimes we do that in such a way that it makes things worse rather than better.
If we feel people are mistreating us, we can get very upset. Or maybe the problem is that we just can’t get what we want – when we want it. When our progress is slowed down by others, it’s easy to get very impatient. Most of us struggle with impatience on a daily basis simply because of today’s fast-paced world.
Maybe our anger arises out of jealousy. Cain killed his brother Abel because he was jealous to the point of being angry.
That is a pretty extreme reaction. But when my personal sense of status is based on my job or position and someone gets promoted ahead of me …well, we know what we feel.
Anger is not a sin
The Bible is clear that it is not sinful to be angry. But there are undoubtedly sinful ways of expressing that anger, and we want to avoid those.
It is a very useful warning light on the dashboard of life. It is a normal and healthy emotion. But we must not allow the red mist to envelop us in a destructive way.
In fact, strange as it may seem, God might want us, at times, to be a lot more angry than we are. He might be saying: “Why are you not angry about this? How can you be so complacent?”
Starting next week, and over the next few weeks, we will see what the Bible says both about when to be angry, and how to be angry.