What makes you angry? I mean, what makes you really mad?

How about when you’re driving? How do you feel when someone passes you and then travels five miles per hour more slowly than you were traveling? Or how about that guy who pulls out in front of you just so he can travel 100 yards and turn off the road? Or what about the times your husband buys something without talking to you? Or what about when you tell him that your mother is coming for dinner five times, and he forgets it?

Anger is both common and dangerous. Still, many of us cherish anger.

Frederick Buechner says:

Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you. (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking Transformed by Thorns, p. 117.)

To deal with your anger from a Biblical perspective: (1) Resolve your own anger personally, (2) Respond to anger with gentleness, (3) Stay clear of angry people, (4) Think before you speak, and (5) Be filled with the Holy Spirit.

This message, delivered at my church on August 7, 2005, expresses that thought. A podcast of it is here. The complete outline for this message is available on request. Email me for details.

Under God’s Grace,
Steve

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