“Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.”
-James 1:19-21 (The Message Bible)
Is there a Holiness to your anger or are you wholly angry? I’m troubled by the anger I am holding. It has been steeping within me like a good tea. I deceived myself by pretending it was Holy; until it became wholly. Subtly.
How are you? How is your anger in this hurting world?
The important question is; What do we do with all our anger as Christians?
We can look to God’s Word and find two examples of anger—the Holy and the wholly.
In Exodus we find the anger of Pharaoh. Pharaoh’s anger was a blinding anger. A selfish anger because his free labor was wanting to leave for their Promised Land which was out of Egypt. Pharaoh was so angry his heart was hardened. His anger was wholly.
In the New Testament we find Jesus angry with the money changers in the temple courtyard. The way they cheated the poor and took Gods grace for granted filled Him with anger. His anger was Holy.
Anger can be an honest emotion. It can spur you on to express your emotions and motivate you to find answers. But, what happens when we don’t express our anger. . . often our anger ends in depression.
Lover of Christ, call out to God. Confess your anger. Pour out your heart before Him. God is still the God who loves you. Unconditionally. He wants to walk with you through your anger and distrust of this world, through the isolation, the shooting at St Stephen’s, the school shooting in Uvalde Tx, and the political and social extremes.
I’m angry. Deeply. So I encourage myself to invite the Holy Spirit into my anger, the Holy and the wholly. I invited Him to work in my heart and in my life and asked Him to reveal His love for me.
Will you join me? His mercy is great.
Camie Schade,
Director of Children's Ministry