Daily lesson for December 1, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 4 verse 4:

"Be angry, and do not sin."

Wow, now this verse has to be in the running for one of the most surprising things the Bible has to say. We just don't wake up expecting the Bible to tell us to go ahead and be angry. But maybe that's because the Bible knows us better than we know ourselves.

The truth is we all have anger issues. For some folks that's obvious. Their anger is white-hot and boiling and when something upsets them they fly off the handle. Everyone knows they have an anger problem.  But for most of us, our anger is more low-grade. It seethes just beneath the surface and seeps out silently and indirectly - in passive aggression, cynicism, and bitter (yet unvoiced) resentment. We cannot see it in ourselves; but those around us see it very clearly - for they have to deal with it in us every day.

The Bible tells us to go ahead and admit it - we are all angry. In fact, it tells us to go ahead and "be angry".  I take that to mean it gives us permission to feel our anger, to let it move through us, and to name it as it goes by. In psychological terms, we are to become "conscious" of our anger. And in doing so we become more able to positively deal with it as it flows through us and fall less prey to its destructive tendencies.

So, let's go ahead and be angry - let's name the things which hurt, wound, frustrate, and disappoint us. And in naming them, we begin to take control over them rather than they over us. In other words, we are to be angry, but not sin in our anger.

A Prayer:

LORD, I admit that many things in my life anger me and oftentimes this anger comes out in destructive ways - sometimes without my even realizing it.  LORD, today I give you the things which make me anger to you, and ask you to help me deal with them in more positive and constructive ways. Amen.