Anger versus Rage

Anger is like lighting a candle.  When you light the candle it is a sudden presence of  light that can be useful. If it continues to burn it, eventually it melts the wax. Rage is obsessive anger that lingers close and below the surface and causes meltdowns.

There are a lot of self-help books on anger management and the dangers of anger, but anger in and of it self is useful. It informs us of the atmosphere or a condition so that it can be dealt with. Rage on the other hand is sizzling and frying to the nerves. When anger is allowed to remain it goes underground and eventually resurfaces or it explodes out of control. Problematic anger is really a rage issue.

In Ephesians 4, God tells us not to let the sun go down on our wrath. It is a great admonition. He also says "Be ye angry and sin not". Sin is  really not the black mark on the mirror of our soul;  it is a condition of our thinking when we look to other things beside God for help. Anger is a tool, not a sin.  It is an alarm clock that invites us to handle things the way God would have it handled. Ignoring anger can be a deleterious way to deal with anger, but there are many ways to deal productively with it.  Keeping rage out of confrontation, anger may mean speaking the truth in love. Sometimes it may mean making a decision, based on discerning good and evil, to walk away  and do it without rage.

Honest, loving communication is vital.  Even when you discuss confrontation with others, people attach the rage issue to it and it casts a negative shadow on an effective way to handle things. Confrontation is simply laying something out in front between people (between the foreheads). I have a blogging friend who says that writing a blog is cathartic to him. I get that. It feels so good to explore truth and lay it out in front of you. Putting things on paper makes you think and careful how you say things.

Truth always, always and can I say it again, always, frees the heart! There is no excuse in the world that can stand against truth.  That is why effective prayer is going to God with an anger alarm and giving him the situation completely without obsessing over and over about it as to things like excusing psychobabble, political correctness, manipulation and ultimately revenge. Understanding of a situation does not mean excusing it. Understanding is another tool to arrive at a powerful solution that changes things and people. Benevolent humanism and the five-sense mans fall so short of this kind of inspiration. Only God can bring on this effect. There is a big difference between man's logic and God's logic.  God is way more logical! I Corinthians 1:18-31 !!

The next time something lights your candle, go for a walk and think about nothing but listening to the Sage of All Ages. Package the problem in a lump (meaning don't obsessively unravel the thing over and over in your mind) and lay it on Him. Don't talk, just listen. Not only do your spiritual muscles get built up, your physical muscles do too.  It's a win-win situation.