I have a confession. I am a loudmouthed, obnoxious and opinionated jerk who knows that, more often than not, I’m right. The few times I’m wrong, I know I’m wrong and then I am right again. I see Mary Poppins being practically perfect in every way and laugh—she’s such a hack. But that’s all introduction to my very real problem: I find it easy to hate.
Yeah, I can real easily go from annoyance to hatred. I’m a walking example of a person that Jesus speaks about that a person who is angry at his brother has already committed murder. Yeah, I know Paul’s words about being angry and not sinning; but I’m the guy that if I get angry I most likely will sin.
And I have reasons, boy do I. Here’s one: the preacher steals his sermons from another real famous preacher whose messages are out on MP3 but not readily available to everyone in the assemblies I get together with. I have a problem with that. Not only is it plagiarism but it says something about the Word of God being a commodity that has to be packaged a certain way to make one’s itinerant speaking career profitable. Or here’s another one: people love doing exactly what James warns against; inviting the really famous and nice people to their homes instead of the not so nice and socially awkward people—they can go elsewhere. Or the way one treats their leadership: because the leadership might be meek servants then we are completely justified in walking all over them and making them serve meekly—even at their financial loss. Here’s another: building a ministry by shaking hands rather than doing some serious work in the field. Here’s another one: itinerant preaching (myself included) with no heart for getting down and dirty. Why fold chairs when you’re the preacher, right? And on, and on, and on, and on..
I can keep coming up with reasons, no problem. The problem is looking in the mirror and knowing that I think like this. Sure I bite my tongue a lot (that probably surprises my wife but I don’t know how many times what really wants to come out doesn’t come out). It’s seriously embarrassing.
And the thing is, God knows all about it. He knows my ins and outs, my thoughts, my heart, my actions. And then he tells us to come to Him and confess these things to him. Heck, reading through the Psalms shows that not only does God hear us when we confess these things; He expects us to be totally open with Him in regards to this stuff. You spew this junk out to, well anyone else, and they’d likely be seriously ticked. But this is the same God who hears the Psalmists cry against their enemies and lets him weep on his shoulder; he hears our prayers—even the angry ones.
Well, this doesn’t justify the hot anger. It might clue me in that I have things that I should be rightly angry about but I have to, by the Spirit of God, work on being angry without the hatred. Thank God it’s not according to my power; I’d never be rid of this.
In other news, I imagine everyone who reads this will wonder if this has anything to do with them. Ah, well.
Tags: anger, hatred
Posted in rey's a point | Comments (2)
October 24th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Rey, are you that little fly on our wall? We should talk…anyway, we seem to have much in common in this area…take care and hope to see you soon. God bless!
October 24th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
You too, Joanne.