What makes you angry? For me, it’s bullying, rude salespeople (especially in posh shops), printers and blue cheese and onion crisp bags. (They should be green. Green is cheese colour – everyone knows that blue is salt and vinegar).
Other common provocations include queue-jumpers, racism, spitting, traffic jams and cold-calling. As ever, Kermit the frog provides the definitive answer, but even if you’re not a fan of Sesame Street (is this possible?), I’m sure you can think of a few triggers.
For a slightly deeper analysis of our anger, James 4 says this:
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
The real problem is not the world ‘out there’, but the heart in here.
Some of things that make me angry are the following: betrayal, loneliness, hangnails, hypocrites, elitists, gurus, large women smelling of Port wine, and the occasional faulty weather report:->
I have however learned to curb much of my anger through the renewal of my mind thanks to the saving power of Lord Jesus Christ, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Blessings to you and yours…Have a great Easter!
Mark
Have you come across the CCEF material, How People Change? “The real problem is not the world ‘out there’, but the heart in here” – this sums up its basic premise nicely. It’s a great course working through how, in practice, the gospel changes us at the heart level, not just in the big-suffering-stuff, but also in the mundane nitty-gritty of real life and our responses to the ‘externals’ that we so often blame for our sin… e.g. “sorry I’m grumpy today but I slept really badly” – I’m not really sorry, I’m justifying my grumpiness and saying that if I’d slept ok I’d be a much nicer person! But God wants me to be godly even when I’ve had a bad night’s sleep – the course looks at how, in real and practical ways, the gospel changes our hearts and minds to enable us to do that without it just being us trying harder to change our outward behaviour (which of course will always fail in the end).
No I haven’t – but it sounds great. As you say, our gospel need is at the heart level (which works out in the day-to-day, practicalities).Just trying to fix our own behaviour is modern day Phariseeism, (and enormously tempting).
I’ll definitely check it out – thanks!