Ephesians 4 31
Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.
As one of many who gave up making New Year’s resolutions, it is, nevertheless, worthwhile to undertake a personal assessment and I was challenged by the subject of Anger Management.
Working with older people for many years, I recognised that, for some, frustration (often assumed by spectators as anger) was the outcome of not being able to achieve what was once an easy task. As someone who is at an age when there are fewer older people than me, I was aware of one aspect that was becoming an issue. One particular social media site was the cause of two specific subjects that caused me to recognise that anger was becoming a problem– for me, though hopefully not for others.
I am not aware of why this should suddenly become an issue, and some might attribute this to the work of God the Holy Spirit. I discovered that the majority of occurrences of words based on “angry” numbers more than 250 and the majority are in the Old Testament. But there are warnings about anger in some of the New Testament books. I have heard some justify anger because of the comment about Jesus in Mark 3 verse 5, but as my history teacher would say, “I need a reason, not an excuse!”
I suppose many readers are familiar with the instruction from 1 Corinthians 11 – Everyone ought to examine themselves before participating in the communion act. Years ago, the church I attended held such a service every week, but now. for many, this is less frequent. So, perhaps like me, a personal assessment would be valuable not only at the beginning of a New Year but regularly as well. The result of my assessment was to opt out thus avoiding these issues. Not all problems are so easy to solve.
PRAYER: Heavenly Father. We pray that you will not only reveal to us any issues that need dealing with but also enable us to take action to remedy the problem.