“Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.
Ephesians 4:26-27
A friend was going through a difficult circumstance and I was always very careful about how I approached the sensitive subject with her. She still had a lot of anger and I was giving her space and room to work through it.
After many months had gone by I asked her if she was experiencing God’s nearness, His presence, His comfort helping her through the process of coping with what had happened.
She quickly said, “No, not at all.”
I was silent. I was silent because I was surprised.
That didn’t sound like how God is.
He is our God of comfort.
He is near.
He is with us.
He understands what we are going through.
He is our helper.
I realize there are extreme circumstances when anger is where we live for a while and we can hardly even deal with God at that point. But this was not that kind of circumstance.
In her answer I still heard the anger. The kind of anger that is unhealthy. My friend already knew that and so I didn’t spend much time trying to remind her. I knew I risked offending her at this point and backed off and decided to approach her about it again at a later date.
Prolonged anger is completely different than initially experiencing anger and then finding a healthy way to deal with it. When we are hurt and angry we are extremely vulnerable to veering off in a direction that takes us away from God and not closer to Him for the help we so desperately need.
Anger is certain to hinder the nearness of God and the healing work He desires to do.
When we lay our hurt and anger at His feet and let it go, then something amazing happens. He moves us out of the place of anger and into a place of healing. The weight that anger was pressing on us is lifted and we will experience the nearness of God again. He never moved. Anger moves us away from Him.
The only way to manage anger is to let it go.
By Kathy Cheek
Used by Permission
www.kathycheek.com
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