DISENGAGE YOUR ANGER

James 1:19-20 New Living Translation (NLT)

“Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.  Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.”

an•ger n. A strong feeling of displeasure or hostility.

To make angry; enrage or provoke.

       Why do we get angry? Impatience could be one reason. When things just aren’t going our way on a given day we have a tendency to lose our temper. In the metallurgical world losing temper means simply that the material has either lost its hardness and become soft or lost its flexibility and become brittle. In our case, we have lost our flexibility. We have allowed circumstances beyond our control to get the better of us. We have allowed ourselves to get riled up, to become ticked off and it’s usually all downhill from there. I know because I lose my temper when things don’t go my way sometimes. I’m much better than I used to be, but that side of me still rears its’ ugly head from time to time.  How silly. We allow things that we cannot control get us so upset that we act in uncharacteristic ways and say inappropriate things.

       Fortunately, this comes as no surprise to God. He knows us better than we know ourselves and I think He may just send some of these annoyances our way to see how we handle them. As believers we are to grow spiritually. The resources are at our disposal at all times, we just always seem to be doing something else besides taking advantage of them. We need to remember that we are ambassadors for Christ. Are we acting like it? Are we living like it? God knows we are frail and fault-filled. He also knows what we can be in Him. Let us all avail ourselves of His wonderful tools to become all we can be in Him. It’s a learning process; we are constantly under construction. Let us learn from our mistakes and make adjustments in our behavior so as not to look foolish to others. 

       Each trial comes with a lesson from God attached.  We should be asking Him to reveal that lesson to us so we don’t have to continue to deal with the same type of situations over and over until we get it right.  The Lord loves us and anything that He causes or allows is for our ultimate good and His greatest glory!  Until next time, walk with the King and be a blessing!

Resource:  The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.