angry at what?

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows the path I have walked since Aleeda was born that I have struggled with anger. I continue to struggle with anger. It is not confined to one area of my life, it is not ever completely relegated to past tense, and it will probably continue to be a part of my life in some shape or form as long as I reside here, part of the collective fallen. It has been in dealing with anger lately that I have come to truly understand the difference between righteous anger and plain old selfishness anger. Am I angry at something that would make God angry? Am I angry at sin, at injustice, at something reprehensible? Fine. God does not ban us from feeling angry. It is the part that comes next that is tricky. While anger is perfectly normal and fine, allowing that anger to cause me to sin is not fine. Not at all. And that is really where I most often stumble. And that is also the area where I have found the truly destructive nature of words. Restraining my speech when I am angry is especially difficult for me. I have to fight my tongue every inch. Even when my anger is just and righteous, I am prone to sin. In Ephesians I am warned that holding on to anger gives the devil a foothold in my life. I am freed from sin through my salvation, but my choices can allow Satan to creep back into my life, measure by measure. It is like the infamous Ice Cube lyric ” you better check yourself before you wreck yourself.” Since I am not familiar with the song or the intended meaning of that phrase, I am going to just tell you how it applies to me. Anger has fueled many people to act against injustice and sin in wonderful ways. But acting upon anger will always, always open the door for Satan to waltz in and destroy a small piece of my world. Anger blurs the lines, muddies the waters, and can make sin seem right. So I need to check myself, I need to find the reason for my anger and figure out if it is righteous. Is it within the parameters of what God would be angry about? That takes some honest reviewing of my heart and my mind and my soul. God will not fit into the box of what I want Him to be. He is who He is. So I first need to make sure my anger matches what I know of the character of God. Then I need to be aware that resting in my anger will only wreck me. It will only do me harm. As a human, I can do nothing by halves; any actions I take in anger are always ill thought, ill planned, ill executed. I have never done anything in anger that did not in some way negatively affect  my life. Because by acting upon my anger, I allowed the devil to enter into my life. And even though David and other biblical men called out to God in anger at injustice, they left the action part to Him who is greater. They did not lash out immediately in their anger, instead they trusted God to act in His time, in accordance with His will. So I need to do the same. I need to share my anger with God and move on. Trusting Him, my Father, to pick up the frustration of my words and act according to His infinite wisdom and perfect will. Be angry, fine, but let it go. And further to that, my anger is never an excuse to abdicate my position as woman, wife, mother. Being angry at my husband, even rightly, is no excuse for me to be anything less than what God has called me to be. It is so hard and I am constantly faced with my failures, but every failure is an opportunity to do better. And I aim to do better. Who I choose to be, the changes I aim to make, the person I aim to become is not attainable without my Father. So I need to let Him wage my wars and work only on myself. That is my job. To be the best me He can make me be. My anger needs to flare and subside with the efficiency of the tide. It needs to fade away so that I can make room for the I AM.