Refrain from anger

Psalm 37:8 (NIV)

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil. 

How often do you get angry?  If you honestly can say that you never get angry then you are truly blessed and don’t need to read the rest of this.  In fact, you are truly Christlike in that if you never get angry you likely possess many of the other qualities of Christ (gentleness, humility, patience, joy, well, all the fruits of the Holy Spirit).  However, I’m assuming that anyone who reads this has experienced moments of anger.  Who is the target of your anger (e.g. your spouse, your children, your employees?).  Are you ever the target of anger (e.g. your parents, your spouse, your boss or a coach)?

I’m telling on my father and I hope that he would smile at this rather than be upset with me.  Dad was a gentle a man as you could find and rarely did I see him display any anger, certainly not against his children.  However, dad cursed like the Marine he used to be when at the end of a sporting event, he got stuck in traffic.  Many a game we as a family saw and enjoyed in person was ruined by dad getting so angry at stalled traffic and people cutting in and so forth.  I know that dad later regretted his anger and it taught his children to do better in controlling our tempers.   

When you are angry you do not have self-control.  Not having self-control means that you are controlled by your evil nature, not by the Holy Spirit in you.  Think about when you have become angry, when you have lost your temper.  What happens?  You hurt your loved ones with horrible words.  You curse.  You behave in a manner that can quickly ruin your good reputation.  Almost always one someone has had an outburst of anger and then cools off later, there is great regret of that person for what he/she said and did. 

The Bible is very clear about the sin of anger.  Some strong passages that speak against anger are found in Proverbs 14:17, 14:29, 15:1, 15:18, 16:32, 19:11, 22:24-25 and 29:22   

My granddaughter, Alexa, (age 11 at the time) sent me this wonderful story that will close this vignette.  Read and reflect on its truth as it illustrates the irreversibility of evil in the form of anger.

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there.”