This important lesson began as I lost my peace and grew angry.
Remarkable for me, for I don’t get angry often.
God was about to teach me a lesson!
The mail lady called the next day… not saying “I’m sorry”, or admitting she did wrong; Only saying, “You didn’t get your mail yesterday”, inferring it was our fault. She said she doesn’t need to bring it to our door…i.e. she wasn’t required to drive the few extra feet down the road to our home. Then, she basically threatened that, in the future, she will take all our mail back to the post office and leave us a pickup notice…which means we, retired older people, would need to drive 15 miles round trip to get our packages… instead of her, a young lady, driving a few extra feet down our drive.
It was more a threat than anything. She was angry that we complained about her.
So then, the mild frustration from yesterdays’ damaged delivery of packages then turned into “anger” toward her attitude and threat and her totally NOT desiring to make things right with us.
Yes, I’m considered a good Christian woman, yet I got angry and hung up! (Readers, I’m being real here…So sorry.)
I felt so badly about my emotions getting the best of me!
I then spent needless thoughts, and time, justifying my confrontation and my side. All this battle was in my own mind. But my LACK OF PEACE meant I needed to calm down my emotions, and come before the throne of grace, to ask God to calm me, and to calm her too, and to enable the matter “to release” from my heart and mind. I asked God to speak to her, so she’d be mindful of our wishes for no stuffing but for no leaving notes too. I knew my words wouldn’t have any more value after hanging up on the lady. She was right. She could leave a note if we got too much mail, instead of being courteous and driving it down our drive. That “extra” customer service is not required of her by the USPS. God would have to take things from here. It wasn’t worth losing another moment of fuming over…justifying…or rehearsing in my mind! My peace had been lost!
Yet THEN, THE SPIRIT began to talk to me … with the verse, Proverbs 29:22:
“A man (or woman in my case) of wrath (anger) STIRS UP STRIFE, and one “GIVEN TO ANGER” causes much transgression.”
I was made to realize that my anger caused me to complain in the first place…
And her anger in response to my anger worsened things…
And then my anger in response to her anger made things even worse…
And the final realization was:
Did anything at all get accomplished? No! In fact, now I’ll get a note, which will make it worse next time there is a full box.
So, should I have not CONFRONTED at all, Lord? Teach me.
And then I was led by the Spirit to Psalm 37:8
“REFRAIN from anger and FORSAKE wrath! FRET NOT yourself; IT TENDS ONLY TO EVIL.”
Wow, that was a quick answer from the Lord! I capitalized the words the Spirit emphasized to me.
Yikes! Conviction flooded my soul. The Holy Spirit kind, not condemnation, but an awareness of my need to acknowledge the truth here. It was me who started all the commotion because I got mad!
My ANGER caused me to complain in the first place.
If I had not complained the other lady would not have experienced ANGER which caused her to be rude in response to me…
ANGER then caused me to speak my frustration and hang up on her rudely.
It was a mess! And it all started with me! I was the sinner here. I could no longer sit there pointing my finger at her laziness or rudeness!
God was speaking TO ME! About ME!
“You, O Lord, are a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” Psalm 86:15
Wow, yes… God is Slow To Anger!
“I’m learning, Lord!” “Don’t give up on me!”
He then took me to Proverbs 15:1, which says:
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
Next, just down the page, I saw Proverbs 15:18
“A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.”
Yep, I see it. When I’m angry (expressing it in attitude and words, I mean), then I actually STIR IT UP, causing the other person to get angry too. Had I just been “slow to anger” I could have closed out the conversation with a kind word, not an angry declaration and a hang up.
I didn’t only sin myself, but I caused the mail lady to sin! She was defensive and mad herself. But it was because I made her feel bad about herself. I was critical. Criticism breeds an angry response. No one enjoys criticism!
But then again, here I went on in my thoughts, to the Holy Spirit, justifying myself again, and saying, “Lord, she was just as wrong! She never even said she was sorry or nothing!” “I didn’t make her sin too!”
“But you did,” He whispered.
He showed me then Proverbs 29:22 which says similar:
“A man of wrath stirs up strife, and one given to anger causes much transgression.”
As I read his living word, I realized that anger not only affects the angry person, but all those around him too.
In my case, I stirred up the strife… I caused much transgression.
“Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools.”
Upon reading this verse, I realized that “anger came” to me. I realized it at the time even. I could have “fought it” when it came, but instead I “embraced it” both that day and this day. I didn’t take that emotion or my thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ, and I could have, and should have. In fact, in all honesty, I recognized that I was even “prompted to” take anger captive, but I justified my anger, instead of letting it go. Anger tends to want to get “payback”.
What I was being shown, is that, had the Lord not gotten ahold of me today…Anger could have “lodged” within my heart. It could have begun a stronghold of anger.
I’m so glad for the Spirit correcting me! I do not want a heart of a fool! I did not want my very nature and personality to be one of anger. I was being corrected by the Lord so that wouldn’t happen!
Oh, praise God! He loved me enough to show me this stuff!
Next verse I was shown was Ephesians 4:26…
“Be angry and sin not; do not let the sun go down on your anger.”
In my case, I came to realize that it was A LIE that I believed about my carrier, that brought the accusation that “she was lazy” in my internal thoughts. I believed that the carrier was supposed to deliver the package to my home when it couldn’t fit in my mailbox. She made it clear in our conversation, and later I looked it up at the USPS online website (yes, in my anger), that, indeed, she wasn’t required to deliver me the mail to my home. She spoke the truth.
So, this was a lesson to me, that I always need to GIVE anger TO GOD. Let it be my sacrifice to Him… to let it go…even if I could be justified in my anger. My anger was built upon a lie. So, I stood corrected.
But, again, even amidst my correction, there rose up within me, a justification! (I reasoned with Him.)
“But God, I did let my anger go before the sun went down, the day it happened!
“I didn’t give it another thought until she called me the next day, so I wasn’t still angry.”
But then, the Spirit began to show me, that anger is like a hot coal, that can be relit… by another’s response to it. Which is what happened. The mail lady “RELIT” my fuse, so to speak. My anger was then “rekindled”.
I’d have to let it go… again today before I went to bed… for it reactivated!
“So, to be angry, and sin not… means what Lord?”
This is what I received in response:
“The Expression of Anger is what brings forth Sin!” …be it in attitude, words, typed words, hanging up a phone, etc.
“There is no peace”, says my God, “for the wicked.”
Friends, I had walked in such a great peace… so I really noticed my anger – for my peace was gone!
This loss of my peace should have IMMEDIATELY been an indicator that my anger – or rather, my acting upon it — was indeed wicked.
I prayed, “Lord, again I ask, cleanse me from evil. I suddenly don’t even feel I need to forgive her. It was a “flukey thing” for us both. I will not complain “higher up” or do anything more than the confrontation we had. Lord, I pray she doesn’t get written up; but that our talk will keep her from stuffing things in the future into people’s boxes. And now I pray this verse for me:
“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.”
“Lord, I do not desire any of these evils to come upon me due to this. I don’t want to do her harm, slander her, let bitterness come within me, and I ask that all residue now leave from my anger expressed. Please deliver me from this sin and from its consequences.”
“But NOW, you MUST, PUT THEM ALL AWAY: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.”
I was glad nothing obscene came out… but the rest did… so I determined to obey this mandate.
Beth, I have heard you, replied the Lord.
Then he said Colossians 3:15 to my spirit:
He also showed me to additional verses, that concluded his lesson on anger:
“For the anger of man does NOT PRODUCE the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD.”
Wow! That was so true! I knew I “lost my witness” with the mail lady. How could she ever know the righteousness of God when my own unrighteousness now stands in her way, blocking it? I felt so badly!
The last verse given was Psalm 34:14
“Turn away FROM EVIL and DO GOOD;
There was my answer. I couldn’t undo the damage. And, if you ever lose your temper and express anger, you must also know, words and actions can not be “undone”.
I do remember asking, at the time, Do I need to write a note and apologize? And God said, “No… I am dealing with her too.” And I realized that sometimes things have to “ouch” a little bit, for correction is not easy, as I discovered. For me, and her, in this case. I am assuming from His reply that she received her own talking to.
Now, as I have humbled myself, to use myself in this truthful example… with thoughts and scriptures taken right out of my own journal… I want you , my readers, to know that the Lord, nine months later, is the one who has prompted me to share this with “the public”.
He wants ANGER gone from us His Children! So yes, He taught ME a lesson… and it worked! But He is also teaching YOU a lesson through me… and I pray it works:
THAT THE ANGER OF MAN – DOES NOT – PRODUCE – THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD! (James 1:20)
It needs to be put away from every believer’s life!
It must be “taken captive” if the emotion or attitude presents itself!
It must not be embraced or acted out!
GUARD YOUR PEACE! Let it RULE your heart. If your peace leaves, immediately ask WHY.
I am at peace… once again… and I cherish it!
It’s a great gift to God’s children, for it reveals to us when we are ALIGNED with HIS WAY!
Amen!