Understanding Anger

The Bible tells us that it is possible to be angry and sin not. (Ephesians 4:26) Seldom, however, do I experience anger without allowing sin to enter. Anger is an emotion that, as Mark Twain once said, can hurt the container more than the one upon whom the anger is poured (or something like that).  Last week, two little boys bent over the Bible story of Cain and Abel. Now there was an anger problem! The Children's Bible kept the story as simple and innocuous as possible.

 
Being brothers, sometimes even angry brothers, these little boys wanted more. They had lots of questions. So I picked up where the simpler story left off. When I had finished, they were both looking at me quite wide-eyed. The elder said, "But that's not fair! Cain took God a present." The younger immediately replied with this: "It is fair. God did not ask for fruits and vegetables. He asked for a lamb. You have to give God what He wants. He's God." Just ponder that for a moment. Yes, out of the mouths of babes.  This is the problem, I always run into trouble when I set up my own will above God's. At some point, I must trust Him once and for all or I shall forever be flailing about making a mess of things that, if I had only trusted God in the first place, would not now be in the state that they are. (I want to add Does that make sense? However, adding the question doesn't make sense if comments are closed, which they are.☺) Often I go looking for a quote to perfectly match my post. Here's a wonderful one:

Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter and shake our fist at the sky and say, "God, you don't know what it's like! You don't understand! You have no idea what I'm going through. You don't have a clue how much this hurts." 

The cross is God's way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments. 

The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, "Me too.”  ~Rob Bell