CONCERT OF PRAYER

Pray Week 836

“Rage”

Ephesians 4:31(ESV) Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

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I broke up a fight between two elderly ‘gentlemen’ in the parking lot where I work this week.  One repeatedly tried to hit the other with his car while he was walking across the roadway to get into the parking lot.  He even jumped the curb in one attempt to do so.  It seems the guy on foot was not getting out of the way fast enough.  Angry words were exchanged and as it escalated anything not tied down was thrown out the car window and then thrown back by the other guy.  Later that evening I stopped at a superstore to buy a few grocery items on the way home only to witness shopping cart rage in the aisle as a person became angry that the lady in front of him was not moving fast enough for him and their exchange of words escalated into shouts of rage.

Rage seems to be much more prevalent in today’s society.  We hear about people ‘losing it’ on airplanes and on the highways.  Workplace violence is more commonplace and on the rise.  What is the root cause of such anger and rage?  Sandi Mann, a psychologist, recently wrote an article on rage for the Huffington Post.  Her research indicates that rage results from two root causes: High, unmet expectations coupled with high stress levels.  There is actually a biblical basis that gives credence to her findings.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. – James 4:1

People expect to be served.  Dr. Mann calls it the customer charter.  As those who work in service industries will attest, the bar is set high for customer service and it is constantly being moved upward in attempts to compete for greater market share. Our world society is on a frantic, frenetic pace.  As the global economy struggles to get back on its feet, people are under a lot of stress to establish and maintain a standard of living that they expect and feel entitled to.  This stress creates a hair trigger for anger and rage to erupt when expectations of perfection are not met.

The antidote and vaccine against such rage becoming part of our character is found in the Word of God:

But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. … put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. – Colossians 3:8

We can also defuse rage when we encounter it by bringing God’s love into the situation.

 A gentle answer will calm a person’s anger, – Proverbs 15:1

May you offer a gentle answer in response to someone’s fit of rage. May you seek to have the peace of Christ control your response to the stress triggers in your life.  May the Lord help you see others, friend and foe alike, through His eyes of love and may you be blessed of God because His Word says ‘Blessed are the peacemakers…’