The Upside of Anger

Tomor­row morn­ing at Church we hit the 6^th com­mand and will be spend­ing our time med­i­tat­ing on Jesus teach­ing con­cern­ing the com­mand.  In that teach­ing he hits hard on the root of mur­der which begins in our heart.  But is all anger wrong?

The other side of anger takes us to John 2:13 – 17 where Jesus clears the tem­ple.  A num­ber of times through out the New Tes­ta­ment we see Jesus’ indig­na­tion toward a num­ber of dif­fer­ent things most often sur­round His pas­sion for God’s glory and his dis­taste for sin mas­querad­ing as right­eous­ness. So where does that leave us.

There are some things that should dis­turb us.  They should reach down and touch a nerve in our heart that moves us to action.  This indig­na­tion reflects the things that move God’s heart to right­eous anger toward the bro­ken­ness we find in our world.  As His peo­ple the things that sad­den God should sad­den us, the things that anger God should anger us.  Bill Hybels calls this our “holy dis­con­tent”.  It is up to us as peo­ple who fol­low Jesus to be a voice for the voice­less, and advo­cate for those who lack the power and resources to do some­thing about their situation.

What is it that both­ers you?  Both­ers you deep down to your core.  What issue stirs your heart and leads you to prayer, in the hope that God will inter­vene.  Maybe that inter­ven­tion is you! Maybe God is wait­ing for us to allow our­selves to get stirred up enough to do some­thing about the things that bother Him.  Maybe has been wait­ing for you and me to get sick and tired of see­ing noth­ing done about the the things that break God’s heart.

Some­times there is an upside to anger when it moves us to prayer and moves us to right­eous action based upon what we find in God’s word and the prob­lems we see in ours.  He is look­ing for His peo­ple to get stirred up, to take His heart and His hands to a world that is des­per­ately seek­ing him.  So I ask again what is it that both­ers you, that you have been pray­ing about?  What is it that God might be call­ing you to do?  Are you both­ered enough to do some­thing about it?