Angry Bird

²⁶“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, ²⁷and do not give the devil a foothold. – Ephesians 4:26-27

There are times in life that we get so angry that it makes us fly into a rage. Many of those moments seem justified and often likely that whoever provoked your anger had it coming to them. Be it someone who cut you off while you were driving, somebody who cheated you, or was dishonest towards you. Anger is something in more cases than none that we make excuses for, and find justification for our careless and malicious responses – whether violently or verbally.

I recall the days when I was a kid attending church, I was often picked on by the other boys. I cried whenever they made fun of me, and even got angry when I felt like I had enough of it. There was one particular time that a bunch of kids in the middle of winter decided to gang up on me with snowballs. I was fed up with being called names and being picked on and pushed around. So I walked over and threw the hardest sucker punch I could with my tiny fists at the biggest kid to prove my point. But unfortunately, so did he. I left a bruise on his face, but so did he also on mine. Most of all, it left a bruise on our friendship. It took weeks before we would even say hello to one another at church. We are able to laugh about those times today, but that is also a memory that neither of us are fond of, even-though we have forgiven one another and have long moved on from it.

There are conflicts though that seem like we are unable to move on from. There are pains that we carry with us in our sleep, and allow it to become part of our dreams. But what sort of dreams do we dream of life? what endeavors do we want to pursue? People differentiate the dreams we have in our sleep versus the ones we have in our fantasy and hope for. But in reality the dream we do remember is the one we want to pursue. Our bitterness and unforgiveness becomes the strangling hold on the dreams that we actually desire to come true. In fact, with unforgiveness and anger in the way, that is what begins to overtake the dream that we should be chasing. The people we face along the way that we do not meet eye to eye with bring back the flashes of those we haven’t forgiven in the past. It becomes easier to lose our joy, and becomes much easier to make enemies than friends. It is an endless downward spiral that the enemy has his foothold on, and pedals it down faster.

So how do we pick up from here? What if that person is long gone? Then it is you who needs to forgive first, even before you’ve reconciled. The scripture says “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry”. Begin with forgiving your neighbor regardless if they repent, don’t repent, or can’t repent. Regardless if they change their ways or not. Begin with forgiving yourself regardless if they forgive you, don’t forgive you, or can’t forgive you.

Most of all, remember that Christ forgave you no matter how many times we would sin again and again. Instead of responding to us in anger, he gave his Son to die on the cross for you and I that we may be saved from our sins – even when we have betrayed him.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8

Today, may you be free from your anger that comes from the unforgiveness that we’ve stored up in the past. May you be blessed in your reconciliation, and may you also be challenged to forgive even if is out of your comfort zone.