There seems to be an epidemic today of anger. You see it in traffic, you experience it in line at the grocery store, you even hear it walking throughout your neighborhood. Everyone seems to be in a hurry, carrying an extra heavy load, and/or trying to fulfill an unrealistic set of goals.

I was surprised when we moved out here eight years ago, how infrequently you hear car horns. Coming from a good-sized city in the Midwest, one of the most popular modes of communication was by honking your horn. If somebody pulls in front of you, you blow your horn; if someone is not going fast enough, you blow your horn; if someone just looks like they need honked at, you blow your horn.

However, it was a couple weeks before I heard a car horn out here. I told my wife, they aren’t great drivers, but they sure seem polite! There have been some changes in our community since then. Somebody told their friends it was ok to honk their horns. Now, to be fair, those expressing themselves by way of their auto audio alert apparatus could all be from out-of-state.

Anger is easy to laugh at in this illustration, but in reality, anger is no laughing matter. People are hurt and sometimes damaged for life because of an angry outburst. Words fly out of the angry persons mouth as fast as them can form them, way faster than they can consider the potential damage. Anger distorts reality, and makes even little issues appear enormous.

Most of us can tell horror stories about times that we have been the victim of uncontrolled anger. If we could only see the deep wounds that our words leave, before we say them. If we could stop swelling with pride, thinking that everything must revolve around us, we’d have a much great ability to monitor our words.

Bottom line, God is displeased with our wicked anger. James writes in…

James 1:19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

It’s true that there are times that anger is the appropriate expression for a situation. Jesus Himself demonstrated anger against the Pharisees. It wasn’t that they were just sinners; they were arrogantly swelling up in pride over their sinful ways. Jesus angrily cast the money changers out of the Temple, for they were polluting its purpose of representing His Heavenly Father.

The times that we are tempted to anger usually have no righteous redemptive value, we just didn’t get our way. We try and convince ourselves that we are in the right, but usually it is because we are trying to quiet the guilt that we feel over our sinful reaction.

As we, by His strength, yield our spirit to Him when frustrating things are thrown at us, His loving nature will begin to be seen in us, and we will enjoy the sweet aroma of victory over our anger.