Anger Hurts (Our Thirty-third 4th Day)

Anger Hurts!

Anger hurts us; it damages our soul. Even righteous anger hurts.

Our God of the Old Testament is revealed at times as an angry God. Do you ever think our God in the Old Testament is different from our God of the New Testament? Is there a disconnect there? I've heard that argument before that the New Testament God is a kindler, gentler God. Such arguments are made by people who haven't matured in their understanding of God.

Did Jesus ever become angry? You may think not, but there are several times in the Gospels that Jesus demonstrated anger: I'm glad I wasn't that poor fig tree that failed to have any fruit when Jesus was hungry; I'm glad I wasn't a money changer in the temple during Passover; I'm glad I wasn't Peter when Jesus called him Satan and told him to get behind Him. (But, if I had been there, it could have easily been me--not the fig tree, of course.)

Of course Jesus got angry, because He is God and God is eternal and unchanging. But nowhere in the Bible does God revel in his anger; never is He happy to be angry. Anger takes something out of God, just like it takes something out of us. Even Jesus' righteous anger hurt Him.

What else? Well, the Old Testament covers thousands of years; the New Testament about three. God's people gave Him a lot more opportunity to get angry with them during that time. But how many times did God relent and forgive His people? Every time! I think if you were to extrapolate the number of recorded times that Jesus got angry to thousands of years like you have in the Old Testament, you would see that Our God is the same, forever. As Samuel told Saul, God wants our obedience, not our sacrifices.

So why am I talking about anger today. Well, as this is my way of sharing my 4th Day experience, I need to tell the good with the bad. I got angry over something stupid. You see, I had forwarded a letter that had come to my house to my daughter. I crossed out my address and wrote my daughter's address underneath. I even put a brand new stamp on the envelope and stuck it in the mail a couple of days ago. The letter came back to me! Grrrrr! Wasn't it obvious that it was supposed to go to the new address?

Well I guess after a few comments about the intelligence of the postal system, etc., my wife asked if that's the kind of reaction that I learned about on the Mountain and why don't I write about that! I was caught! At first I tried to pass it off as just kidding. But after 26 years of marriage, I couldn't fool my wife. But it did lead me (in my shame) to think about what I had done.

No, that's not what I learned on the Mountain. I had become angry and it left a scar on that moment in time. I had let my Lord down by forgetting the Grace He has shown me in my failings. The anger I had over that letter not being delivered to my daughter was foolishness and it hurt.

So, pray for me that I will be more patient with others and remove the log from my own eye first.

May the love of Christ be with you always.

De Colores,
Bill
WV88

P.S. Remember and pray for the pilgrims of WV89.