Have you ever been so angry that you felt the veins in your neck throbbing like a bongo beat? Have you ever seen someone whose words "blasted" from their mouth and whose face was an unhealthy magenta. Summer in the city can be hot and cause us to "lose it."
The news can make you hot under the collar and cause stress. But stress can be a good thing if it is a temporary warning that gives you a chance to do something about it. Yet, stress can be silent and unnoticed. If you try to hold it in it can kill you. But stress in any form can be the most life-threatening cause that the Devil uses to turn soldiers of the cross into ineffective non-combatants.
Last Fall the "Border Wars" between two outstanding football teams played here in Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium before a vast ESPN crowd of partisan fans. Kansas University, in Lawrence, was 11 and O; the University of Missouri, in Columbia was 10 and 1. Both were ranked in the top five in the nation.
The historical significance goes back before and during the Civil War, when Kansas anti-slavery Jayhawkers made murderous raids into Missouri, across the border, and Col. Quantrel's Rebel Bushwackers rode into Lawrence, Kansas, and massacred over 163 men indiscriminately, contributing to the term, “Bleeding Kansas”. Many of the bloodiest and most fiercely fought North/South battles occurred in eastern Kansas (Union anti-slavery) and western Missouri (Sourthern sympathizers) on the very land where we live.
Our home in Mission, Kansas, is only a mile from the border in the metro Kansas City area, about half-way between the two schools. As a loyal Kansan I watched the game with Helen. As Missouri began to run over KU, I could feel the pressure building in my head and down my neck and shoulders. Helen was tensing up also. But then, KU brilliantly fought back and almost tied the score with a last 5 second chance to win – but they lost.
Here's the silly thing: Helen and I became terribly worked up at the loss to Missouri – and K.U. wasn't even our school – Helen is a Virginia girl and we both went to college in Virginia. So - why did we get so worked up? We immediately had to set our affections on other things to rid ourselves of tension.
"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory" (Colossians 3:1-4).
Anxiety that turns into angst, sadness that turns into depression, and disappointments that turn into bitterness and anger are things a Christian does not have to have and it can be managed - immediately.
This is a world full of “babies” who cannot find ways to get along unless it is by "sex, lies, and video tapes" and murders. This is not all about interpersonal relationships entirely. It is about a world gone mad ever since the recorded incident in the third chapter of Genesis.
When all the world seems to be "going to hell in a hand basket", if you are a true "born again" believer with Christ IN you and you IN Christ why do you worry about anything. You don't belong here. Your life is in the heavenlies. You are left here on earth to be conformed into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ and to reproduce other "true" Spirit-led believers.
Abraham "looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Hebrews 11:10). And he taught his "children of promise," Isaac, and Jacob, to regard their time on earth as a pilgrimage. We are strangers in the earth, having been set free from the curse of sin. We do not need to sin or to be angry, we have the power to overcome and to obey God.
We are the only people who live in two places; enduring our pilgrimage on earth while having peace from God in the heavenles. If things get bad, we can be transported aloft and look down with pity on this sad state of mankind and their toys.
Remember the plea of a man taken into custody who said, "Can't we all just get along"? The answer is "No." Well, maybe for a while, but how long has any peace ever lasted? The greatest argument for universal sin is man himself, especially the arrogant enemies of God who think that they will usher in the Millennium by the inventions of their own superior intellects.
Actually, man is a poor steward of the earth and cannot take care of himself - and cannot find a way to live forever, except in monuments and dedicated buildings, and they all crumble in time. Cynical? No, realistic, actually.
There are millions on the face of the earth who know in their hearts that there is a God who created all things and He is love - but He is also holy and righteous; He is just and no iniquity can come into His presence, yet He is rich in grace and His mercy endures forever. He is not a God who exacts human blood for atonement of sin. It was God's blood shed for our redemption and sin was judged on the body of His only begotten Son.
And to those of us Christians who look agape at the brutality, corruption, double standards, and the no-standards of a corrupt world system, God gives an answer to us and provides a way to keep our perspective in a daily spiritual walk.
"Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth [Reckon them dead with the old man you once were; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them" (Colossians 3:5-7).
When you feel yourself turning beet red, obey the warning and leap into the heavenlies to the throne of grace where Christ sits on the right hand of God the Father and receive grace and peace. In other words, rise up and simmer down.
(Angry man image by permission, Tulio Silva)
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