"Do not be quickly provoked
in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools." - Ecclesiastes
7:9
Every day of our lives we are placed in situations that
engage us with other people, whether it is in the office, our homes, or in
public places. Do you recall the last time someone cut you off in traffic, or
you were forced to wait in line because someone up front got held up? Perhaps
your employer did something that was downright unfair. Anger can result from
many circumstances.
A friend once told me that anger is like warning lights on
the front of your car dashboard. They signal that there is something going on
under the hood, and we should take a look to examine the source of the problem.
Anger can be traced to a few sources. First, when we lose control of a
circumstance that we have placed certain expectations on and those expectations
do not result in our desired outcome, we are tempted to get angry. The source of
this type of anger is both fear and protection of personal rights. You see, when
we believe we have a right to something, we have not given the Lord permission
to allow an outcome different from what we want. If an outcome is different from
our expectations, this may stimulate fear.
For instance, if a vendor failed to deliver an important job
on time due to something out of his control, you may respond out of anger.
Please know that the source of your anger is the fear of what might happen to
you or what this might say about your abilities to manage a project. You no
longer are in control of the circumstance and this creates fear in you.
The next time you get angry ask the Lord what is the source
of that anger? Did the Lord allow that failure to let you see what is "under
your hood"? God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a
sound mind (see 2 Tim. 1:7). Give up your rights to expectations that God never
gave you. You will find a new freedom in Christ you never knew you could have.
No comments:
Post a Comment