Bible Verse: Proverbs 19:11

The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.

As Angry as You Choose to Be:

Recently, while shopping, I met a nice lady who was very angry. She was muttering and fuming about being treated unfairly by the store employees. Somehow our paths crossed, and once she told me the problem, I decided to delicately try to calm her. I actually felt comfortable enough to mention to her that she was probably not being singled out, this kind of behaviour happens often, and that she was the author of her anger not the people causing the trying situation. While she was jeopardizing her health, the store employees were obliviously going about their business.

When troubling and frustrating circumstances arise, it’s our choice how we’re going to respond to them. It’s funny how we expend so much anger on the very things we can’t control. We can’t control the traffic and we can’t control how people treat us. We can exhibit impatience and annoyance and raise our blood pressure, but more often than not, the situation will be the same five minutes later when we’ve cooled down. So why expend the energy?

So many of us carry our anger around with us, ready to lash out at the least provocation. We are miserable, unhappy and just plain annoyed at the world in general. We use anger as a crutch, claiming to the hilltops that our lives are so messed up that we have a right to be angry…and we take our resentment out on unsuspecting victims everywhere.

We know that being angry is not a sin. It’s an honest emotion that we’re expressing. Yet, what usually follows after we experience our angry feelings – damaging thoughts, words, and actions – is where the danger lies. If you know that you have a tendency to fly off the handle and lose your cool over little things, the key is to pray right now, not when you’re in the circumstance, and pray often that the Lord will give you the grace to control your reaction in these situations.