Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

"Don't sin by letting anger gain control over you. Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry."¹

One night when I was watching the news on TV, I couldn't help but notice that one group who were demonstrating against war became very violent. Violent peace—an oxymoron if ever there was one!

Now, I'm not against peaceful demonstrations, but when people get violent, it seems to me that they are very angry and are looking for a peg on which to hang their anger. That is, they want to blame someone or anything outside of themselves for their own personal problems.

Unfortunately, this happens far too often in relationships. Angry people breed anger and until they "own" their anger (admit that they have an anger problem), they will continue to look for pegs on which to hang their anger and blame others for their anger and rage. What happens doesn't make them angry—it just triggers it. To blame others or external circumstances for one's anger is a handy excuse to hang on to if we don't want to grow up and accept personal responsibility for our problems.

I'm not saying we shouldn't get angry at wrongdoing and evil. We should. But when we overreact and become violent or rage-full, that is entirely our problem. The purpose of anger is to bring about creative change—not to lash out at others and blame them for our rage.

So ... if you are angered too easily, too often, too much, and react out of proportion to what has happened, and you want to bring about change, may I kindly suggest that you start the change in yourself, admit your problem, and seek help to resolve it.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please help me to see through my blind spots and acknowledge all of my problems and character issues. Help me to accept personal responsibility for resolving them, and lead me to the help I need to do so. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus's name, amen."

For further help read "Taming Your Anger" at: http://tinyurl.com/tame-anger.

1. Ephesians 4:26 (NLT).

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