Seeing Red?

"Hey Sam, you look good today."
"What are you sayin'? You trying to dis me, punk?"
"No, I was ..."
"I won’t take this. You wanna fight?"
"No!"
"Oh I see. You think you’re better than me."


You can't escape them when you walk through the halls in school or out on the lawn during free period. You may hear them during drive time or while watching TV — those fighting words. It seems like everywhere you look there's always somebody angry - sometimes for no apparent reason whatsoever. Sometimes, I stop to think, What could possibly be going on in that person’s life that they would constantly throw out irritability and frustration? What is at the source?


You see, anger is never the root of the problem; it is the symptom of another issue. It can be a deep down illness — a build up from the stress of both internal and external sources — maybe a divorce, self-failure, broken friendship or simply from a lack of sleep. Whatever the case may be, the anger clouds over a person’s view of his or her environment and everyone around. It shows up as general frustration towards things and people and gradually can escalate to bully syndrome - cussing people out, beating people up, and generally having a bad attitude when dealing with relationships in general.


And it’s no surprise that Christians struggle with it, too. But what does the Bible say about anger?


“Be angry, and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still,” — Psalms 4:4, NKJV.


At first glance, this verse makes no sense whatsoever. God tells us to be angry? Impossible. If you dig into the roots of this verse, you may become even more confused. In the King James (KJV), Psalms 4:4 reads, “Stand in awe and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.” The significance about this is that KJV uses “awe” instead of “anger.” Are they not opposites? The root says that one meaning of awe is “1) tremble, quake, rage, quiver, be agitated, be excited, be perturbed.” To “rage” and be “excited” are definitely two different words.


The verse says that we can be angry, agitated or stirred by a circumstance but we should not sin in our anger — we should “be still.” This phrase, “be still,” means:
1. To be silent
2. To be still, die
3. To be struck dumb
4. “Niphal”— to be silenced, be made silent, destroyed … among other definitions.

In our anger we should be “struck dumb” — so we don’t do anything about the circumstances until we’ve had time to regain our sensibilities. Perhaps this is God’s way of calming us down. By being still, silent, and “struck dumb,” we calm down and “meditate within our hearts.”


If we stop long enough and meditate simply on God, our anger will “Niphal” — be destroyed. Why? We can’t be calm and angry at the same time.


There will always be something coming at as in life that has potential to ignite anger. But in the process, we have control over the choices that we make — to react or be still. When you feel anger rising, be still. Be totally reliant on the Holy Spirit. God will bring calmness to the situation and our spirits and show us the way to respond when we submit to Him.