Anger is in the air! Can you feel it? This is nothing new. Why do we fight with people? James dared to ask our first-century spiritual ancestors about the motivation for their anger. Then he answered his own question: Desires that battle within you make you want what others have so you quarrel and fight. If others take what we feel entitled to, we get angry.
When I get angry I like to ask myself, “Why?” If I can locate the source of the problem I can address it from God’s Word in the power of his Holy Spirit. Anger is not necessarily sin. There is such a thing as righteous anger. Jesus’ anger was righteous when he purged the temple of people who used religion for profit so that he could make room for the Gentiles to come in to the court designated for them.
In my observation, though, not much of my own anger is righteous. How do we keep the corrosive power of anger from diminishing us and consuming us? We get rid of it as Paul told the Ephesians in 4:26-5:2. I do better when I do not speak my anger to or about others. And when the sun goes down each day, I let it go. This is the only way I know.
