I wish I could tell you I don’t get angry.

Anger can be described as a response to feeling attacked, deceived, frustrated or treated unfairly. (Definition from mind.org.uk)

I wish I could say there is nothing you could do that could make me feel like switching, to take me from 0 to 100.

Here are somethings I found that make me take deep breathes:

• Messing with my loved ones
• Trying to poison a friendship or relationship that’s dear to me
• I hate injustice
• Disrespect

If you know me, you know these things are a no, no!

However I have come to realise that there is a difference between being an angry person and feeling anger to a wrong done.

Sounds like an excuse right, but hear me out:

Proverbs 22:24 “Make no friendship with an angry man and with a furious person thou shalt not go” (KJV)

Colossians 3:8 “But now you must also rid yourself of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language,”

These scriptures are clear that having anger as one’s disposition, as a constant is not good. Have you met someone who is always angry? I have… it’s really sad because they live and interact from the place of perpetual anger. You have to thread on egg shells because you don’t want to be a casualty of their anger.

However, the Bible also says:

Ephesians 4:26″Be angry but do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger”

James 1:19 “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry”

 

Are these two scriptures permitting anger? It reads that way doesn’t it but they aren’t. I believe what they are doing is acknowledging that there are times when we get angry.

I once heard Pastor Dharius Daniels say

” Emotions should be indicators not dictators.”

So they reveal what condition you are.

Just like the taste buds on your tongue communicate how you feel about the food in your mouth, emotions communicate how you feel about what you are experiencing.

 

So for me, when I got wrongly accused, shouted at, hung up on, the anger I felt indicated that I was not pleased and hurt. You see there is always a root cause. (I know those seem trivial lol)

The problem however, is when we let our emotions become dictators i.e. have rule and power over us. For example the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4, God warned Cain about the anger he was feeling, warning that if that anger was not checked it would lead to sin and IT DID! Cain killed his brother! Unchecked emotions are dangerous!

You see, bad emotions should be warnings to apply the brakes, to exercise self-control so you don’t fall into sin.

 

That’s why Ephesians 4: 27 says “do not give the devil a foothold.”  and James 1:20 warns that human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. That’s why we have to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger (James 1:19).

A foothold is a place where someone can lodge their foot to support them securely especially while climbing. In this context, if we remain in anger and allow it to dictate our actions then we can allow the devil wrongly influence us to sin. If we stay angry, he begins to suggest things to us, wear down our moral compass until we no longer see the person in love. They become an opponent.

How many times have you heard, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean, I was just so angry.” or “I don’t know what came over me, I remember being so angry and then….. I just saw red” Many good relationships, connections, lives are lost due tom anger.

You see most people get angry but only “fools give vent to their rage but the wise bring calm in the end.”

So next time you feel angry make sure you exercise self-control so the devil does not take control.

So yes, be angry but don’t sin. In the next blog I will speak on how. How to not react when angry, how not to punch someone in the face when you feel like that’s the only thing that will relieve the anger. (lol)

(These are only a few scriptures on anger, there are many more, why not study it out yourself).

Thanks for reading.

XoXo

Ele