Turn Away from Anger

“Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.”

The psalmist is referring to fretting over others who are evil and who may be succeeding despite their wickedness. He goes on to talk about what happens inevitably to righteous men and evil men. But here, right here, he says “hold yourself back from getting upset and angry when you see or know those things, because that will take you down a road away from God.”

“Deliver us from evil” was part of the prayer that our Lord taught us. Evil is down a fork in the road. It is always a side road that turns into a bad detour. Evil is there when there is road construction needed or being done in our heart. And at first it doesn’t look much different than the road we’re on except that it gets progressively rougher, it seems put together quickly without as much thought and preparation as the “narrow road,” and the farther you travel on it the more bumpy and uncomfortable it feels. If you stay on that detour you can come to a “bridge out” sign which if your heart is darkened by that time, you will not see. And, in the darkness and your emotion you can blow right past that sign and take a hard fall.

Calamitous.

But there’s always a warning sign before every fork in the road and that’s what the psalmist has posted. It is painted in bright reflective yellow with black stripes. It glares in the beam of headlights “Watch out for anger and wrath! Don’t stew on what others do.” If you see those signs, turn back! Don’t turn down that road because it leads to evil.

In Holman, the word used instead of fret is “agitated.” Don’t let yourself get agitated by others. Getting agitated is like water on a pond. After an earthquake the sediment on the bottom, all the junk that has settled out of the water some of which might even be toxic, gets shaken up or agitated and it rises back up into the water turning it into a brown, junky murk. What was previously clear, transparent and healthy, becomes dark, opague and undrinkable. What once supported life now becomes life threatening.

Don’t let yourself get worked up by others. It’s a bad road that leads to evil. It takes what was a transparent and yielded life and it makes things murky and unclear.

Asaph the psalmist talks about this issue in Psalm 73, one of the most alluring contrasts between this potential and the right choice. He describes how he almost fell into the trap of the road to evil because of envy of men who succeeded despite being wicked. Deeper and deeper he takes you into his fascination and disgust of those who do well despite doing bad. And then he subtly begins to turns his psalm into a statement of triumph as his words crescendo in surrender and hope:
“Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:25-26.
For the Christian, there’s another vital implication in this wise instruction. Worry is always the result of lack of faith. Worry is simply the fear that God cannot or will not do what we want. If God cannot do what we want then there is no basis for any faith and we are lost. But, of course, this is the antithesis of the Gospel, the entire Bible and the evidence in the world and in all creation. God can do all things, and even through us. And, if God will not do what we want, what concern is that of ours? For, we are taught and we believe that we should pray for God’s will to be done. We are here as believers to be instruments or agents of God’s will. It is our heart’s desire to see God’s will be done on earth, just as in heaven.
Since we are human, we can count on being tempted to worry. It will fall on us like rain, when our sky has filled with dark clouds. In fact, we will inevitably worry because we will believe that God wants us to do our very best and we will worry that we do not know how to do that, or that we will somehow be prevented from doing it and the outcome will disappoint ourselves and God. Or, we will worry because we fear the outcome that God’s plan may hold. We ignore the promise of Romans 8:28 and consider that we may be facing trial or hardship or even death.
When the worry clouds start forming, when we start to get agitated about other people, it is time to pray for God’s will to be done. To release what has caught us, to let go of what has us in its grasp, and to tell God that we understand that he has this issue firmly in his hand. This prayer is the one that we should pray without ceasing, until we have been released and we are once again on the narrow road that leads to Christ Jesus.