#4. guard your relationships.
you will become an angry person if you hang out with angry people. that’s what the bible says. proverbs 22.24-25 (msg) says, don’t hang out with angry people. don’t keep company with hotheads. bad temper is contagious. don’t get infected. others’ anger can easily infect you.
at its core, anger is an emotion that seeks to correct wrong. when you feel angry, you feel wronged. that’s why there’s a good kind of anger. there’s some genuine wrongs in this world that need to be corrected. the best example obviously is terrorists attacking innocent victims. we should be angry about that. it is a wrong that needs to be corrected.
in an argument, oftentimes you feel like you’ve been wronged for all kinds of wrongs that you make up in your mind that are much greater in your imagining.
you also know that there are people in your life who can help you calm down in that situation. but there are other people who will cause you to become angrier. you get around the wrong kind of person, and they’ll just build on it. you say, “somebody at work said something that bothers me.” they’ll look at you and say, “bothers you? you should be angry about that! you should go back and tell them what you think.” then you go back and tell them what you think, and they say, “why do you do that?” that’s what happens in that circumstance.
there are people in your life who cause you to become angrier. the bible says watch out for those kinds of people. they say phrases like, “you deserve better... you should be angry… i’d tell them what i think if i were you.” but they don’t tell you proverbs 11:23 (msg), wicked ambition ends in angry frustration. if it’s all about me and what i want, it’s always going to end up in angry frustration.
just a thought from the front porch…
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