It's amazing the silly things that we can get angry over. I remember fighting with my brother when I was little about pencils, plates, who got to sit in the front seat, who washed and who dried the dishes, and who got the bigger slice of cake. Anything you can think of; you name it, we probably fought over it. Even these days, when I like to think of myself as so much older and wiser, I still fight about silly things. Sometimes it seems important at the time, sometimes it doesn't; always after the fact I feel foolish for going off about such a stupid little thing.
But all of us struggle with anger. Some more than others, naturally; but I seriously doubt that any of us haven't gotten upset when we feel that we've been wronged, no matter how slight the wrong may actually be. Many people think that anger is automatically bad. But I don't think there's anything wrong with anger in itself. Jesus himself was angry multiple times in the Bible, for example when he drove out the money changers in the temple of Jerusalem (Matthew 21).
The key is that you have a just cause to be angry. That you have "righteous anger." And that, in your anger, you do not sin. It's perfectly legitimate to be angry if someone hurts another person; but if, in your anger, you retaliate and hurt that person back, you are just as guilty as they are.
So many of us pray and ask the Lord to help us get rid of our anger. I know I did for years, and still do occasionally. But perhaps we are asking for the wrong thing. Perhaps it would be better to ask, not that our anger disappear, but that our propensity to engage in foolish and stupid arguments would disappear. Because that's the real sickness, the cancer that clings to our bones and threatens to destroy every relationship that we have if we let it. Run away from foolish arguments. Don't be the one that starts - or even participates in - all of those silly little quarrels that can would so deeply.
But all of us struggle with anger. Some more than others, naturally; but I seriously doubt that any of us haven't gotten upset when we feel that we've been wronged, no matter how slight the wrong may actually be. Many people think that anger is automatically bad. But I don't think there's anything wrong with anger in itself. Jesus himself was angry multiple times in the Bible, for example when he drove out the money changers in the temple of Jerusalem (Matthew 21).
The key is that you have a just cause to be angry. That you have "righteous anger." And that, in your anger, you do not sin. It's perfectly legitimate to be angry if someone hurts another person; but if, in your anger, you retaliate and hurt that person back, you are just as guilty as they are.
So many of us pray and ask the Lord to help us get rid of our anger. I know I did for years, and still do occasionally. But perhaps we are asking for the wrong thing. Perhaps it would be better to ask, not that our anger disappear, but that our propensity to engage in foolish and stupid arguments would disappear. Because that's the real sickness, the cancer that clings to our bones and threatens to destroy every relationship that we have if we let it. Run away from foolish arguments. Don't be the one that starts - or even participates in - all of those silly little quarrels that can would so deeply.
Matthew 21:12-13
12 Jesus entered the
temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He
overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those
selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
2 Timothy 2:22-24
22 Flee the evil desires
of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with
those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 23 Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 
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