Thought for Today
Psalm 37:8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath. Do not fret-- it leads only to evil.
Psalm 103:8 The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
Proverbs 16:32 One who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and one whose temper is controlled than one who captures a city.
2 Corinthians 12:20 For I fear that when I come, I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish; I fear that there may perhaps be quarreling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder.
Ephesians 4:31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice,
“. . . ask ourselves what makes us huff and puff and grind our teeth – and ask whether we are getting mad about the right things.” (These Days, February 4, 2026)
I suspect that many of us have encountered those for whom anger is their default emotional setting. Maybe some of you are even like that. As I read that devotional yesterday, I thought about my own default emotional setting. I believe my default is joy . . . but, there are those days when I wonder.
What makes you huff and puff? What makes you grind your teeth? Unless you are the big, bad wolf confronting the 3 little pigs, should you ever huff, puff or grind your teeth. For what it’s worth, your dentist will probably suggest you never grind your teeth. But, understanding huffing, puffing and grinding as metaphors for anger, is anger ever justified?
Looking at the world around us, it seems to me that many have decided that not only is anger justified, it is mandatory and proper in almost every situation. As Christians, our first response should be to turn to scripture. What does the Bible tell us about anger.
The first thing I observed when I used my Bible app to search for anger is how frequently the references found were to God’s anger. You will notice that I did not include any of those verses. I do not like to ever think about our Creator God’s being angry. I find trying to understand and respond to God’s love a formidable task. I cannot imagine trying to understand or respond to God’s anger . . . but Noah, Sodom and Gomorrah immediately come to mind.
I always think of Jesus in terms of love, Jesus’ own love and God’s love as expressed in John 3:16-17. Was Jesus ever angry? “John 2:14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!’" That does sound like an angry response to me; but, I notice John says, “17 His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’" Sometimes it is hard to differentiate between anger and zeal.
Dylan Thomas does offer me a thought in his poem Do not go gentle into that good night. It begins, “Do not go gentle into that good night/Old age should burn and rave at close of day,/Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” If we do “ask whether we are getting mad about the right things,” maybe our first task is to define the right things for our anger and for our love and joy.
John tells us of Jesus, “1:4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” I cannot say whether or not that was the light of which Thomas wrote; but, the dying of Jesus is something against which I can rage. Not just the Incarnate person of Jesus, but also the dying of the joy and love Jesus brought into our world, the hope Jesus offered to all without hope.
I do not believe the “light of all people,” the hope, love and joy Jesus brought is dying. Quite the opposite. Despite all the ‘nay sayers,’ I see outbreaks of the Kingdom of Heaven all around us on a daily basis. Christians continue to proclaim the good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, to work to recover sight for the blind, to set free the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Rather than getting angry, I feel infused with greater zeal for God’s house.
Stay safe, rage against the dying of the light, trust God,
Pastor Ray