Overwhelm
“'My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers'”. (Matthew 21:13).
Sometimes people get under my skin. I can usually block it out for a while and then suddenly, it is just too much to bear and I cannot handle it at all. When that happens, I am ashamed to say that I just lose my temper.
Losing a temper is a very annoying thing to deal with. When a person has lost their temper they have an increased risk of saying or doing things that are regrettable and even very damaging.
I have yet to meet a person who wounded me terribly in cold blood. Most of the wounds I have suffered have been caused because someone had lost their temper and said or did something that was unfortunate.
And I have been reflecting on how difficult it is to take control and responsibility for my own temper.
Anger is not the problem. We have been hearing about the righteous anger of God since the Word of the Lord was first written…
“God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.” (Psalm 7:11).
“Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, 'I will take revenge; I will pay them back,' says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19).
“The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.” (Nahum 1:3).
In the New Testament, we are told about Christ’s anger when He upturned the tables of the money lenders…
“Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 'It is written,' he said to them, 'My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers'”. (Matthew 21:12–13).
And God is without sin. He has to be because by its very definition sin is the rejection of the Holy Will of God, it leads to evil, which is, by its very definition, an absence of Good. God is Good and perfect Goodness. That means, by definition, God cannot sin. To do so would be to oppose His very nature and definition…
And I have been thinking about that today. That really means that anger is not a bad thing. When anger is expressed correctly it can lead to great change. If Christ did not express anger when He went into the Temple that day, we would not now know that we must show respect for Our Lord in the House of Our Lord…
And I have been thinking about that today, because sometimes I become overwhelmed. And it is not the anger, but the overwhelm, that seems to land me in so much trouble…
And I do not relish waiting until the final judgement to see an account of the damage my temper has done!
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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