You're Going to Get Angry

I woke up MAD!   It’s not worth explaining why but I typically wake up happy and today I woke up angry.   I think my anger is justifiable (don’t we all?).  And I know that I will work through it.  But I’m not a happy camper this morning.

Growing up in a denomination where we went to outdoor revivals and sang “Holiness unto the Lord is our watchword and song” (anyone else know THAT hymn?) it was made very clear that some things were wrong.  And for the longest time I thought that anger was a sin.  In fact, when Jesus turned over the tables in the temple I was taught that that was “righteous indignation.”

But as I grew older I realized that anger is an emotion.  It is not controllable.  It is going to be there.  It's part of the human condition.   It’s what we do with the anger that matters.

In Ephesians 4 we are told this, "“In your anger do not sin”:  Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,  and do not give the devil a foothold.”

Here’s what we can learn from these two verses.

1). We are going to get angry.  It doesn’t say “If you get angry” it says "In your anger.”  It’s bound to happen.

2). We have til the end of the day to work through it.   Bart and I have had this rule since our first night of marriage.  We don’t go to bed mad.  Early in our marriage we stayed up SUPER late.  :-).  On our first anniversary we had 2 toddlers, our 2nd we had kids ages 2, 3, 9 and 11 (and the oldest two were HARD kids.   We argued more about them than anyone else).  By the next anniversary we had 8…. But we didn’t double after that.   Needless to say we had a lot of long arguments, but never once have we gone to bed without resolving it.

3).   When we sin in our anger … or hold on to it too long, we give the devil a foothold.   This is his opportunity (that we are handing him) to get in and start to wreak havoc on our emotions destroy our lives.

So I will work through it. I will find ways to turn things around. I will take the steps I need to take to get over the situation and myself.  I will have it resolved before bedtime and I will determine that this situation isn’t going to give the devil a foothold.

What will your response be?

My first step was to watch this video.  It always lifts my spirits.

And then this happened.

I feel much better now.