“If you are angry, don’t sin by nursing your grudge. Don’t let the sun go down with you still angry—get over it quickly; for when you are angry, you give a mighty foothold to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26-27, LB).
It can start from the smallest things such as a simple word, an awkward glance, a slight motion of the eyes, and even a long distant remembrance of a critical remark. It can come from large incidents such as a string of explicit sentences in a castigating rebuke, a demeaning glare meant to dismiss us or our inherent value as a person, a full-force movement or some event around us, and even from the recollection of a past memory of bitter hurt and trauma. Anger can be triggered in the minutest moments from slight ill-treatment or it can come as a bolt of high-powered voltage in response to any interaction, situation, or event.
Anger as a reactive emotion is innate in all of us, as surely as we can be happy. Sometimes anger is positive, for example, when anger comes as we see injustice and then is directed towards action. Yet anger in each of us: unmanaged, not dealt with, uncontrolled, undirected, and not understood, can burn, hurt and endanger us in numerous ways in our business, professional, interpersonal, personal, and familial relationships. Anger denied, uncontrolled, or unmanaged can stagger, consume and devastate us in the psychological, social, physical, and spiritual realms of our functioning and living.
Anger as an emotion is never denied in the Scriptures but the sin of letting the fire of anger engulf us, entangle us, and consume us, and the actions coming out of anger are readily condemned. Any intent and any action that would hurt or maim another person is a sin. Any anger left to fester, grow, intensify, and rage out of control will burn us from within and damage our relationships, careers, and well-being.
We need to understand anger as a fire. Anger like a fire can start from the smallest of sparks. Anger like a fire when given attention and focus becomes oxygenated fuel in an engulfing uncontrollable blaze that we wish we could somehow extinguish. The truth is simple: anger comes to all of us, but we should never allow our anger to lead us in the direction of sin.
“This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20, NIV).