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March 11, 2024 | Daily Devotionals | March 11

Harness Your Anger

 

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.  James 1:19-20

 

It feels good to get angry when another person is wrong. (Admit it, it does.) That out-of-line social media comment that everyone feels free to condemn; the guy at the grocery store screaming at his kids. It also feels good to get angry when someone wrongs us. The boss who dresses us down for a mistake in front of our colleagues; a friend who gets caught in a lie about why they missed your birthday party.

 

Slights. Wounds. Wrongs. As men it’s easy to nurse righteous indignation and bitterness toward those who have wronged us or others. Because, well … “They’re wrong!” From wrong-doers you’ve never met—the Putins and Epsteins of the world—to your mother-in-law who for years called you Derwood. (Okay, that’s from “Bewitched,” but you get my drift.) 

 

No one thinks they are wrong when they are angry. When you are enraged at your wife for some slight, every hot word burns with laser-focused clarity. It’s not until the tirade is over that your “baby brain” cools down and the adult you reemerges. Those instant, angry outbursts are born in what’s called our mid-brain—it’s where our flight or fight responses live; it’s where our emotions reside. And when it gets the better of us and the anger—righteous or not—spews out onto others like “emotional vomit,” it usually doesn’t end well for anyone. 

 

However, we aren’t docile saps who never let wrongs or hateful words get to us—despite what our dads or culture told us, sticks, stones, and words can and do hurt and anger us. Stuffing it down doesn’t work; like an active volcano, that noxious magma will eventually erupt. And neither do we allow ourselves to scream and rage at the world—that’s not “manly,” and bullying isn’t the sign of a godly man.

 

Did Jesus get angry? Oh yeah. But about the right things, and with measured response. In fact, those places in the New Testament where Jesus exhibits anger—toward the moneychangers in the temple, the Pharisees, abusers of the young or weak—reveal perfect balance and management of emotions. When we are tempted to lash out, the best thing to do is a quick “arrow” prayer: “Lord, I’m super pissed off, but let me respond as You would.” Over time, like muscle memory, God’s responses will pop into your mind in the heat of the moment, rather than the world’s. New neural pathways are being made in your brain—good habits are forming.

 

The mole—Satan—wants us ticked off at every little wrong. It’s exhausting! Anger is natural; it can spur us to action. But make sure it’s not spurring you to verbal abuse or worse, and always check your anger against what Jesus would do. “If you become angry, do not let your anger lead you into sin, and do not stay angry all day” (Ephesians 4:26).

 

Father, the world can really tick me off sometimes. Please let my anger be aimed at the right things, and always in the way Jesus would want me to express it.

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