Getting Angry

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I do not want my message to be overshadowed by your wondering if this is a “holier than thou” post, or if I think I’m innocent and/or perfect. I assure you: that is not the intent of this post. Which is why I write “we”. Because I include myself as a sinner, who has made many mistakes, in the population of people on earth. WE are all guilty of something. Sin is sin is sin. No sin is bigger than another. All sin grieves God. Just so you know, so we’re clear: I’m not perfect.
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Our assignment from church this week, part of our Lenten series “The Desert” is to go to our quiet place and think and pray and figure out what we are angry about. I am guessing from the message, that we are supposed to find something to have godly anger about. What is godly anger? Maybe a serious injustice which occurs in our world. I have thought of several since yesterday, number one being human trafficking. Yes, that is what I would be angry about if I were to choose one “big” thing. There is also the persecution of Christians around the world. Also, the murder of women and children by militants in other countries. Or any type of genocide. There is the human rights violations of many in our country, and a plethora of other wrongs being done to people on a daily basis. Babies go hungry, children have no shoes, little girls go uneducated and forced to marry before they are adults, boys are being raised without fathers, and turned into street thugs so that they can eek out a living, or find a gang to protect them; people with disease are being denied care for inability to pay outrageous fees, babies die for no known reason, children die, parents die. People fight cancer for decades and survive and then just drop dead. I could go on and on.

Right now though, I’m angry at something a little more close to home. I’m angry because people are so stinking mean to each other!

In church on Sunday, while I was taking notes on my phone app (as you do), I was thinking about all the things that Jesus would “clear the temple” about these days. But after reading John 2:13-22, and talking about blowing air through our nostrils, the pastor totally said that if we follow the greatest commandment, we would not need the rules in the Bible, because we’d be following God, and doing what He wants us to do – out of love. By the way, everything in italics in this paragraph is PARAPHRASED!!!! But he did say that we are supposed to love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. (again, paraphrased, but you get the picture)

Here’s the thing about love – what the Bible says about love in
1:Corinthians 13:4-8: “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures every circumstance.“

I’m angry because we are not kind to each other. We are not patient with each other. We are jealous of each other’s possessions, successes, and relationships and we are haughty and proud when we do something well. We demand our own way. In fact, we are so selfish, we do not even try to understand where another person is coming from! We just demand our own way, and we get irritated by others. Whether it’s their tone of voice, their inability to do things our way, their personal choices, or the way they look – we get irritated. And we have mental notes of how many times so-and-so has ticked us off, hurt us, or done us wrong. We can recall this mental note (or list) quickly, especially when so-and-so is in trouble or needs help, or has irritated us. Again. And our note says that we don’t have to rescue them because they still “owe” us. We rejoice when someone gets their “comeuppance”. When someone we don’t like has a lifestyle we don’t like, we feel like it is all their fault, and they deserve what they get. (If they weren’t gay, they wouldn’t have been beat to death by a homophobe) We give up, lose faith, and run for the hills anytime something is tough or doesn’t go our way. Because that’s the easiest thing we can do.

What makes me mad about the judgement, the intolerance, the hatred, the rudeness, the impatience, the unkindness, and the general ill will towards others is that it is contagious. This negativity is like a poisonous gas that infiltrates every single person in the space it occupies, even if they do not participate in the negative activity, they are forced to think about it or avoid it or must deal with it in some other way. It is an infectious evil that I have too often witnessed happening between people who need each other, and it snatches time from important things; like hugging and loving, laughing, sharing, supporting, and encouraging. It sucks the air out of people’s sails and causes them to go into a tailspin. Frankly, it’s evil.

Recently, I have had some of my friends come to me and confess that they have been bullied and harassed. Some of these friends are students of all ages, some are adults. When this happens, an immediate wave of anger rises within me. I feel incensed and the alarm bells inside me go off. I want to investigate and uncover the source of the harassment immediately. I want explanations from the people who are being mean. I want answers. And I want it to stop. Of course, because I love the people who are in my life. But also, I want it to stop because I am just so sick and tired of people being mean to each other.

I look around me and everyone is beat down every day! Little kids are afraid to go to the playground, because no one wants to play the same way they play. Older kids are afraid to stand up for each other for fear of being picked on themselves. Adults are in constant fear of not being perfect. There are people with wonderful gifts and talents who are overlooked because of their outward appearance, men who are discarded because they are seen as “weak” or “defective” because they are tenderhearted. Christians don’t go to a specific church because of something that has been preached or said by a clergy which contradicts their own theories. Siblings do not speak because a rift has caused them to take sides on an issue or family secret. Too many relationships are ruined because people can’t be respectfully honest with each other, and do not take their troubles, questions, concerns, and issues directly to the source. Instead, they go and tell their problems to another person, who may repeat it to someone else. I see people crying inside, the light in their eyes, dimming by the day. I see people angry, because others don’t understand them, and it seems as though they will never get a “fresh start”.

I do not want my friends to stop coming to me when they have concerns or are hurt. I want to always have an open door for people. I want people to know that they can tell me anything. Even if it isn’t pretty.

Right now, that’s the thing I am angry about. That we are all so mean to each other, and we need to be a whole heck of a lot nicer to others. If you’re reading this, and you feel upset that you might be included in the “we”, then please, drop a message and tell me how you are living outside of mean. Tell me how you can help show “us” how to live a life without being mean. How can we all live together, with all our opposites and all our opinions, with our beliefs and values being so different? How can we live peaceably? How can we encourage someone who is so different than us? How can we look beyond ourselves and see value in those who are not like us?

For today, that is all I have on this topic. I have a few ideas of what I can do. I’ll wait to hear what you have to say about all of this. Drop a comment here or on Facebook, send me a personal/direct message, or text me if you have my number. I’d love to hear what you have to say regarding this. Can we love (all that is entailed in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8) everyone, especially those who are different?

Just a little music to help iterate: *Warning, some videos may be disturbing*

If Nobody Believed In You

Alyssa Lies

More to come…