Tag Archives: anger

A Love Letter to an Angry World

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(Photo of me in June 2017 @ Brookgreen Gardens, SC – Taking a beautiful walk on a rainy day)

Romans 12: 9-21…Love In Action…

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary:

‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

August 18th is a special date in my life. A spiritual day. It was the birthday of my late mother, it was the original due date of my first born child (she came early on the 13th), and it was the birthday of my late writing mentor, Bryan Davis. I associate this day with so many joyful memories, and so much dark tragedy. My mom and Bryan influenced my life in many wonderful ways. They also crushed my soul in many different ways. They are both powerful and tragic figures in my life and who I’ve become. My mom found dead by me on a floor after a long suffering time with alcohol and depression. Bryan found by his family in their garage, in a shocking act that will never be understood or explained. Two incredibly dynamic creatures of God. I remember them both on this day…August 18th.

I’m not an angry man. I could be. I have been. I have lots of reasons to dwell inside anger and just revel in the destruction. God saved me. He sent his Son. Pulled me up, poured his light inside me, and made me a new thing. The dying flesh part of me, its heart, still holds onto certain things, and it tries to pull me towards resentment and bitterness. It tries to pull me away from that light. But it can’t. Jesus does not let go. Jesus does not fail. Jesus just keeps teaching me to be all new. To live in victory. For every bitter thought, he pours 10 joyful ones. For every bitter memory, he gives 10 beautiful sites to replace. No, I’m not an angry man. I’m a thankful man, a joyful man, a loving man, and an educated man…by the hand of our Lord.

Paul, in Romans, writes to us what “Love in Action” looks like and plays out. I posted the entire passage for us in this devotional, because it’s important to read and understand. It’s a checklist. To compare and contrast. To correct and encourage. Where am I? Where are we? Does this list sound like my life? If yes, good, keep going and going until fully Christ-like. If no, then why? Am I truly his? Did I really submit? Was I sincere? Why am I not transforming? Take this very seriously, souls that are reading, because if you’re not either at or trending towards the loving existence described by Paul…something is wrong.

This world is quite an angry place. My country, the United States, is angry and confused. Paul’s message is a love letter to an angry world. We, the partners of Christ, are his lights to answer that anger. We are the medicine that heals. Not the poison that kills. We must not take all of the world’s anger upon our shoulders and try to fix it all ourselves. This is neither our job or place. You will bury yourself in grief. We simply must be what Paul has described so beautifully in his love letter. Are we? To the world, those things?

Ponder this today…this special day of August 18th. The picture I posted was on a day earlier this summer that was a total washout on the South Carolina coast. It rained all day. Just miserable weather. Yet, that was the day that God chose to put an umbrella in my hand, and send me off to one of this nation’s most beautiful spots – Brookgreen Gardens in Murrell’s Inlet, SC. That day so far has been one of my favorite days of this entire year. I strolled with that cheap umbrella purchased on my way at a grocery store for hours in the rain. The wonders God put in front of me as the rain poured down around me…filled my heart with pure happiness and joy. I can still feel them inside. I think they’ll be eternal. A little small taste maybe of what is still to come. A living hope that will not extinguish. It was such a wonderful gift from my Father.

I think of that day as a metaphor for weeks like this one in America. When anger and confusion are pouring down around us…from authority, media, our friends and even family. All of it wanting to suck us in with it and join among the reveling in destruction. No thanks. I have an umbrella, and I have a job to do…Love in Action.

I love you readers, wherever you are and whatever nation you are from…you are my neighbor. Let us practice Godly love.

Gary Abernathy

 

The Things We Keep Buried

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Colossians 3: 5-10…”Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”

The Apostle Paul wrote this as part of his letters to the church in Colosse around 62 A.D. while he was a prisoner in Rome. It is written as a warning to keep pure the work of Jesus at the cross and the resurrection thereafter, as the church had morphed into a sort of hybrid religion that no longer resembled true Christianity. It is a detailed account of what we are before receiving Christ, and what we transform into after the death of our earthly self and being reborn in the spirit of Christ. He’s very blunt and explicit in his instruction and they are hard words to hear and read. Very few passages in scripture are as important as what Paul wrote here, but these are the exact same qualities that many of faith choose to ignore as command. However, we must keep in mind who wrote this – Paul, the human being that the resurrected Christ specifically and directly chose to bring the gospel to all the world…to you and to me. This is to be taken as if spoken directly to your face by your Creator.

We are warned here by Paul that there is a coming wrath of God and it will be leveled against the things that are born from sin. But since we have been saved by the blood shed at the cross and reborn, we are now transforming (being renewed) in knowledge and in the image of our Savior. In that, we must die in our earthly self and that life we walked in that will face judgment, and walk in the new self that we now have in oneness with Jesus. Complicated? Sure, if you’ve not been rescued by Christ and the Holy Spirit has not yet come to you. But to those to which this has occurred, it all makes perfect sense. It’s the application that gets lost in translation. Transformation is a process…not a one and done, at least for most. Paul was a one and done, but most likely you are not. I am not. We are transforming from our previous life which is now dead. It’s like a snake shedding its skin. What is left behind is all that Paul listed…all the things that separated us from God and eternal light.

There has been much I’ve lost in my old self as that doomed existence dies and my true life emerges. Much of the sexual immorality, the evil desires, the greed, lust, anger, rage and the rest has washed away, and the Spirit is always pouring life back into me to replace those things. Yet, on occasion, I’m reminded my transformation is yet to be complete. Especially when I take off a piece of the armor that shields me from the enemy and leave myself vulnerable to attack. I’m nearly certain that I’ve never met a fully transformed being and that I probably never will. I believe they are out there and I absolutely believe we can get there before leaving this earth, but we do have an enemy and we are constantly at battle with it.

Buried deep in my gut somewhere is this little ball I’ve discovered. It’s not supposed to still be there. I don’t want it there. Yet there it still is. Its content is a toxic brew of terrible pain, anger, rage, sins of all sorts, and all that was me before my rescue. It’s almost as if this ball is a “greatest hits” of all the traits my previous doomed soul consisted of. The death of my mother and the massive pain that came with that takes center stage in that melody. It’s a platinum hit. Recently, because I took my armor off, that little ball of pain was exploited and it surfaced on me again. My actual brother witnessed this. I’m not sure what happened and why, and after much personal analysis I actually believe it was part of the ongoing transformation process. God was releasing it from me and in confession there must be a witness to it. The deep bitterness I was holding towards the end result of my mother’s life poured out of me in a fit of rage.

God has used that ball in my life for a long time. It’s the motivation that has propelled me to do many good things in life out of the ashes of the wrong. It’s the source of what led me to him and his rescue. But it’s of no use anymore as those things have died. I cried the next morning after that ball came pouring from me to God to please take it from me. I didn’t even know it was still there like that. I didn’t belong there and I pleaded for him to take it. There exists plenty of mystery still regarding God, our salvation, our personal transformations, and the way we are used in God’s glory and purposes. For me, this is one of those mysteries. But I take it back to what Paul says here…”Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.” I pray that I do.

What are the things you are keeping buried deep in your gut? What type of control do they have on your actions? Consider Paul’s warning. Put them to death.

Gary Abernathy