Elul 12
Anger
“When angry, do not sin; do not ever let your wrath (your exasperation,
your fury or indignation) last until the sun goes down.” (Eph
4:26 AMPC)
Unresolved anger can kill you; even our current
medical community recognizes this fact, evident by the myriad of anger
management classes and counseling that are available these days. Many of us can remember the television series
of the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s called “The Incredible Hulk”, a series which
chronicled the life of a scientist who would turn into a huge, powerful, green (something
resembling a) man when angry and upset.
And truthfully, this is not all that far-fetched. Anger, together with its siblings of wrath
and rage, can turn the most docile individual into someone that is not even recognizable. Not good, people, and it is certainly not something that brings honor to our
Elohim.
I
honestly believe that all types of anger find their origin in being
offended. Take ‘road rage’, for example. Just yesterday, I was reading an article that
involved a young woman riding her motorcycle home from work, and stuck in rush
hour traffic. A 60 year old man took offense
at the way she was maneuvering from lane to lane, and earnestly tried to not
only run her over, but pin her between his own car and another vehicle! The episode intensified to the point that
when the backed up traffic was forced to a complete standstill, the man jumped
out of his car, with the intent of doing this young lady bodily harm. A violent fight ensued, during which the man
was repeatedly slamming the woman’s helmeted head into a concrete jersey
barrier. In an act of self-defense, the
woman was forced to pull her legally licensed firearm and shoot the man,
killing him.[1] This is a perfect example of how becoming
offended exploded into a full blown rage, which ultimately resulted in the man’s
death. How sad.
A person
who has anger issues is most likely one that is easily offended – stop and
think, for a moment, of those people you have known throughout your life who
required you to basically walk on ‘egg-shells’.
With that thought in mind, the relevant question of the hour is, “am I
that type of person myself?” It is not a
sin, of itself, to be angry; there are examples throughout the Scriptures of
those who became angry for one reason or another (Lev 10:16; Neh 5:6; Jon 4:1;
Luke 15:28). However, our motive and
reason for becoming angry and offended is what needs to be scrutinized
closely. Always remember that our lives
are not about the self-exalting “I”; the life we live is all about Him, the One who created us.
Our
opening verse from Ephesians gives us clear instructions on how we are to handle our anger. Foremost, and most important, we are never to allow our ‘short fuses’ to walk
us into any type of wrongdoing and sin. Unfortunately,
for most of us, by the time we have become that angry person, we are no longer “loving
our neighbor as ourselves” (Lev 19:18), making us guilty of breaking
Torah. No, it doesn’t matter what that
other individual(s) has done. It is not
our responsibility as to how that
person chooses to live their lives,
whether in obedience to Torah, or in open rebellion. It is, however, our responsibility as to how we
live out our lives, and it is our responsibility
as to how we choose to react to those around us.
Bottom
line? Get over it, and move on. Do I know what I am talking about? Yes, I do.
I spent years in a marriage with a man that tried to kill me on two
separate occasions, and when I say that I was angry, that is putting it
mildly. I was – in my own eyes – justified in my anger. Nevertheless, that attitude is not in keeping with the divine
instructions in moral and righteous living that my Creator requires I live by. Anger, rage, and the resulting fruit of
bitterness were something that I could no longer nurse, rehearse, and hold
close to me; they had to be released
before I could move forward in my relationship with my Elohim.
As we
progress through this month of Elul, it is the perfect time to examine all of
the different occasions and circumstances where we have allowed anger to
consume us, and hold these incidents up against the standard of the Torah. If we are open and honest with ourselves, we
will recognize that it is past time to get over it, and move on. What that person, or people, did to us is not
relevant to our own deliverance and salvation.
On the other hand, how we choose
to react to what was done is relevant. We must make the choice; are we going to
allow all of this anger to be the ball and chain around our legs, holding us
back from achieving the kind of relationship with our Father that He desires us
to have? Or are we going to release it,
every bit of it, and allow our Elohim to deal with whatever wrongs we perceived
had been done to us. As always, the
choice is ours.
Choose
life.
“I have called the
heavens and the earth as witnesses today against you: I have set before you
life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore you shall choose life, so
that you live, both you and your seed, to love יהוה your Elohim, to obey His voice, and to cling to Him – for He is your life and the length of your days.” (Deu 30:19-20 ISR)
“Make no friendship
with one given to wrath, And do not go with a man of rage, Lest you learn his
ways, And find yourself ensnared.” (Pro 22:24-25 ISR)
©2018
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