31 Days of UnitySample

(Re)flect: How often do you get angry? What makes you angriest or makes you angry most frequently? Do you feel you are more or less angry than you used to be?

To get angry is to be human. We all get angry from time to time. Sometimes it is over something small, such as a mistake, missed opportunity, or loss. Sometimes it is because of something significant, like the loss of something or someone irreplaceable, or a deeply painful experience. We grow angry at ourselves, and others, on behalf of others. This is why understanding and managing our anger has always been part of God’s work in the lives of God’s people. It is so easy for anger to fester into violence, hatred, and broken relationships. None of those are part of God’s kingdom. Festering anger is the root of disunity within the church, effectively hiding the light of God's love under a bowl. Jesus came to show us a way of living beyond anger, one that brings peace, love, and healing to our lives and through our lives to the world.

God’s work in us, as individuals and communities, always involves a transformation of anger. We have legitimate reasons to be angry at suffering and sin in the world, but God’s purposes always seek to take that anger and transform it so that it can be used to accomplish God's purposes. God heals. God forgives. God brings about justice.

As we seek God's transformation of our anger, we have significant challenges. We are living in a world that prospers through our anger. Outrage is the spirit of our age. Our world is filled with experts in creating, manipulating, and inciting the worst parts of us. When we are angry someone benefits, but it usually isn’t us, and it is seldom God.

Jesus challenges his disciples to rethink their anger, its consequences, and their responsibility to heal broken relationships. Life in God’s kingdom is a life of transformed and redeemed anger, one that brings healing instead of division, and peace instead of violence. Our pursuit of unity means that we must turn away from the world's anger, and turn towards the love of God which can heal, redeem, and transform our anger into righteousness.

After you read the passage ask yourself these questions:

• How often am I angry? What most incites my anger?
• Does my anger lead me to sin against others? How? When?
• Spend some time being quiet, listening, and waiting on God and ask, “How is my anger preventing me from participating in your kingdom?”

Our Prayer for (Re)flection:

Lord, reveal how we have failed to be obedient to you and to love one another as the children of God. We long to be unified through your love and as the body of Christ. Renew our hearts and minds through your unending love, and give us the courage to surrender ourselves to your Spirit this day. Amen