God’s Promises For Every Need: Anger Series

God’s Promises for Every Need: Anger

Proverbs 25:21-22

#EveryNeed

ANGER NARRATIVE 1

Your grandchild has been working really hard at learning soccer and playing soccer. They aren’t all that good in all honesty… they just started playing and learning about the sport. No one is good when they start something because it takes practice. You are watching the game in the stands with everyone else. The game starts. It’s all going fine. Cheering is fun. There is a parent on the front row who thinks they should be the coach and yet isn’t. He’s telling all the players what to do and how to do it. He’s an expert on everything. Even the kids are a little confused because they hear the coach’s voice, but also hear this guy yelling out. The confusion causes a mistake on the field and the other team scores. Then it happens. He berates your grandchild for the scored point and jokes to the people around him that, “this kid wouldn’t know a soccer ball from a tennis ball.” Your grandchild looks to the side of the field, hears the person yelling, and starts to cry.

At that moment, the yelling know-it-all went from being an obnoxious problem to an enemy who has made you completely righteously calling down-fire-from-heaven angry.

ANGER IS A BASIC EMOTION

Anger is a basic emotion.

Anger is a basic emotion because we all deal with it. If you are alive and breathing, you deal with anger. The first set of children… Cain and Abel… dealt with anger and it didn’t work out well for Abel. We get wronged, we get angry. We see something we judge as unfair, we get angry. Taco Bell stops serving the Mexican Pizza, we get angry. We feel verbally attacked by a co-worker, we get angry. Anger happens and it is an emotional reaction to the world around us that often seems unfair, belligerent, or does not meet our expectations. I also happen to think that anger is a normal part of being a human being. Anger is part of life.

Anger is a basic emotion.

When we think about anger and make it a color, we make it ‘red’ because red is a primary color. Red makes a ton of sense because it is a primary color and anger is a primary emotion. Anger makes our mouth go frowny, which is only 1 of the 2 ways our cheek muscles make our mouth move (up or down). Anger is basic. Anger is a gateway emotion which leads to hate and hate leads to suffering and suffering leads to the dark side. Anger can be described as an iceberg since the anger is on the surface, but guilt, fear, embarrassment, hurt, worry, or trauma might be hidden underneath the waves of life, but anger is the basic emotion expressed.

Anger is a basic emotion.

ANGER NARRATIVE 2

The tow-truck just drove away with your only car. Your blood pressure is through the roof and you are so angry you yell out loud. You were married once, but now you are not married. The reason you are not married is because ex-spouse decided to trade you in for a younger model and is now off living in Hawaii sipping from those little drinks made out of coconuts with the little umbrellas. The money they are spending to live in Hawaii and drink those little coconut drinks is the money you helped scrimp and save for and money for which you worked. Apparently, the car you drive is only in your ex’s name and they sold it out from under you to pay for their continued island life. Enemy. Enemy. Enemy. Anger. Anger. Anger.

ANGER IN SOME BIBLE PASSAGES

Anger is also an emotion tied often to sin in the Bible. The Bible addresses anger because all people in all walks of life will deal with anger. God knows you and I will deal with anger. God knows the ins and outs of anger and what ways you and I should process anger and what ways we should not.

READ PSALMS 37:8 = “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret, it leads only to evil”

READ PROVERBS 15:18a = “A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict”

READ ECCLESIASTES 7:9 = “anger resides in the lap of fools”

READ MATTHEW 5:22a = “anyone angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment”

READ EPHESIANS 2:26a = “In your anger do not sin”

READ JAMES 1:20 = “human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires”

Over and over and over again in God’s Word… the Word given to us because God loves us and wants the absolute best for us… God warns us that anger and the results of anger brings us no good thing. Anger solves nothing in relationships. Anger makes nothing right.