In the days when people rode trains instead of flying on airplanes, a certain businessman gave a porter a large tip, asking the porter to make sure that he got off the train the next morning at 5 a.m. in a certain town where the train stopped. He explained that he had a very important appointment and that he also was a sound sleeper and feared he would not wake up. "Yes, sir!" replied the porter, "I’m sure I can take care of it for you." But at 9 a.m. the next morning, the businessman awoke to discover he was still on the train and some 200 miles away from his destination. It was a very angry man who found the porter and gave him a tongue-lashing, throwing in a few words he had not used since his Navy days.
"That absolutely has to be the maddest man I’ve ever seen in my life," remarked the conductor, who happened to be standing nearby. "Boy, if you think he was mad," replied the porter, "you should have seen how angry the man I put off the train at 5 this morning was."
We chuckle at the incident, but the number of people who allow anger to get the best of them today is no laughing matter. Displays of anger and rage, both public and private, are on the increase today. A generation ago when someone failed to turn on his or her headlights at dusk, you blinked yours. No more! You’re fearful that what you intended to be a helpful reminder may be taken as a hostile gesture. If you question that anger is on the increase, notice what happens when somebody crowds in front of a person at the gas pump, or when someone pushes somebody else in a crowded elevator, or when someone cuts into the line in a grocery store. Tempers flare, and fast! Most of us have grown up feeling that to display anger is wrong, but is it really? Is it bad to get mad?
Surprising as it is to some folks, the Bible has a great deal to say about anger, or strong wrath. In the Old Testament alone, there are 455 references to anger, 375 of those references referring to God Himself. Many of those references pertain to His relationship to His own people of Israel, who refused to follow the directions of their Heavenly Father, and the result was that God was displeased–yes, even angry with them–because of it.
In the New Testament there are many references to anger and how to cope with it. Jesus was angry with His disciples on several occasions because of their refusal to believe Him. He became angry with the Pharisees because of the hardness of their hearts and their hypocrisy. He said, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean" (Matthew 23:27).
There is that classic illustration of making anger work for you in doing the right thing, as Jesus did when he picked up a whip and drove the money changers away from the temple. The Bible clearly differentiates between "being angry" and "remaining angry". Paul’s guideline to the Ephesians was, "Be angry and sin not", (Ephesians 4:26). Therefore, it is how you handle anger that determines whether it is wrong or right.
Why is it that we are an angry, uptight generation? To make it personal, why do you allow your temper to flare on occasion? Says Yale psychiatrist James Comer, "People have a sense that the world is closing in on them, that there are too many people around and that they are getting ripped off. We feel powerless. All of a sudden, we are beginning to doubt that anybody can do anything about our problems, and we are angry. We explode in frustration." There is a better way, and we will find out what it is next week.
Resource reading: Romans 12