Fired Up: From Anger To Action

Road Rage

Let me ask you a simple question: “When was the last time you got angry?”

Maybe it was this morning when that driver cut you off in traffic. Maybe it was last night when your teenage kid rolled their eyes at you one too many times. Or maybe you’re angry right now about something deeper - an injustice you’ve witnessed, a relationship that’s broken, or a situation at work that just isn’t fair.

In fact, I remember a time driving home from work and I was stuck in just terrible traffic. Right here on Concord. Just sitting there in my car, gripping the steering wheel, knuckles white. “What is taking so long?”

“Traffic is moving! Go!”

And just to justify myself a little here, as of 2019 the American Automobile Association (or AAA), reported that as many as 8 in 10 American drivers had engaged in aggressive driving. They estimated that:

55 million drivers sped to prevent another vehicle from passing them.

75 million drivers tailgated another vehicle to prevent another vehicle from merging in front of them.

62 million drivers had rushed to merge into traffic in front of another vehicle.

71 million drivers had honked or made “rude” gestures.

Now, as a pastor here at this church, I just feel like I have to tell you that if you decide to wave at someone on the road, and that wave doesn’t involve all of your fingers, it can be a dangerous thing. In fact, I saw an article about an incident near Salt Lake City this past week. The headline read, and this is a sentence I’ve never read before: “Road Rage Bullet Hits Tip of Raised Finger.”

Now, there’s a story that gets your attention! Apparently, this 25-year-old guy was sitting at a stoplight around midnight when a woman pulled up beside him. The light turns green, they both try to merge onto the interstate, and things get heated. She’s driving aggressively, he’s driving aggressively back (we’ve located two of the 60 million drivers from earlier). She yells something, and he responds with what may call the “universal sign of disapproval.” Well, she responds with her own sign of disapproval and pulls out a .357 gun and fires four shots into his car. One of them hits his middle finger. I guarantee you the next time this guy experiences road rage, he’s going to think twice before acting on it. Same for her - as she was arrested. But isn’t it amazing how anger can take something as simple as merging onto a highway and escalate it until someone’s pulling out a weapon and the police get involved? Yet anger grips us all the time - not just on highways, but in our workplaces, in our homes, or in our relationships.

You know, I saw an article recently that said Americans are angrier than ever before. A 2023 poll showed that 84% of Americans are angrier today than a generation ago. But here’s what’s interesting - when you ask people if they personally are angry, most say no. It’s always those “other people” who have the anger problem right? Not me. Not you. Someone else. Anger seems like it’s that relative that nobody wants to talk about but that shows up at every family gathering anyway. We all deal with it. The question isn’t whether we’ll face anger; it’s about what we’ll do with it when it shows up.

The Nature of Anger: Not All Anger is Created Equal

As I was preparing for today, I came across something from Pastor Jud Wilhite. He said,

“Notice it’s not events that make us angry, it’s how we think about those events.”

— Jud Wilhite

Take the road rage incident – was it really about merging into traffic? No. It was about how they thought about that moment – about pride, control, being disrespected.

The Nature of Anger: Not All Anger is Created Equal

And this isn’t just some modern take on it. Three thousand years ago, King David was dealing with the same issue. Turn with me to Psalm 37 (this is where we’ll be largely today). As you’re turning there, this is a Psalm that David wrote in his later years – and we know this because in verse 25 he tells us, “I have been young, and now am old.” This is wisdom from someone who’s been there, who has experience in handling anger God’s way.

Look at verses 1-2 with me:

“Fret not yourself because of evildoes; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.”

— Psalm 37:1-2 (ESV)

That word ‘fret’ in Hebrew is "????????" (charah) literally means “to burn” or “to blaze.” But it's actually in the reflexive form, which means it's something you do to yourself. David is literally saying, "Don't set yourself on fire because of evildoers." Isn't that powerful? When we let anger consume us, we're the ones getting burned.