Proverbs 22:24-25 (NIV), "Do not make
friends with a hot tempered man. Do not
associate with one easily angered or you may learn his ways and get yourself
ensnared." Is anger
contagious? You better believe it! It's infectious! Highly infectious!
If I started yelling at you, eventually you'd
probably start yelling at me. Anger is
contagious. When we get it out, other
people pick it up.
If you are serious about breaking this pattern in
your life, you need to hang out with some people who have got it together in
this area. That is one of the reasons
why we have church. It is not a perfect
place, there are no perfect people there.
It is for people who want to grow.
But the people who come to church are at least making an effort to do
what's right which is better than a lot of people are, so you hang out with other
believers, – it is called fellowship.
Why? You start picking up their
good qualities, too. There's value in
that, great value. [Three good churches
in Metro LA are PazNaz in Pasadena, MosaicLA in Hollywood and Saddleback Community
Church in Orange County. They don’t accept
perfect people there.]
The way that you express your anger is not anger,
not in your genes – you learned it. You
learned it by growing up and watching other people. If anger is a learned response then it can be
unlearned. That's good news. I don't have to go the rest of my life being
manipulated by my moods. I don't have to
go the rest of my life being controlled by my feelings. I can learn to be patient when everything in
me wants to be impatient.
Just a thought from the front porch…
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