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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – We have an anger problem.
It was on display earlier this week, in the Karmelo Anthony case. He’s the 19-year-old who will spend the next 35 years in jail for a stabbing at a high school track meet. He wandered into the wrong team’s tent. The exchange of words that followed resulted in a 17-year-old being stabbed in the heart. How in the world does one thing escalate into that? Couldn’t this have been resolved with an ‘I’m sorry’?
Look at the vile things we say about each other on social media. No ones mind is ever changed. We call each other names for sport.
Ask any schoolchild of any age if bullying is a problem. The honest answer is yes, daily, every day school is in session.
Look at what you and I say when another driver cuts us off. I’m particularly bad at this one. My latest offense is just yesterday.
The Bible gives us one example of Jesus’ anger. He cleared the temple, using a whip and turning over the tables of the money changers, declaring “my father’s house shall be a house of prayer, not a den of thieves.” That tells me that righteousness anger is acceptable. Blind rage is not.
The Bible offers the only useful advice about anger management:
“Forgive others as you have been forgiven.”
“Pray for your enemies.”
“Vengence is mine, saith the Lord.”
What I’ve come to realize, but don’t always practice, is that anger debases all of us. Who dares to have a mirror held up to them when they are in a fit of rage?
Forgiveness, letting go, not seeking to score-settle are the only times that someone looks big in their anger. Imagine the burden that we loose from ourselves when we remind ourselves that God’s justice is perfect, and that we don’t have to worry about it.
Chris Conley
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