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“Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare” (Proverbs 22:24-25, ESV).
When I was growing up, I had a friend with whom me and a couple of other hung around. He was a good fellow, but I never understood why he got boiling angry so often. I remember on one occasion when his anger arose as a volcano; with force, he got out of the car, slammed the door, and walked home. Pretty tame, really. Then, it got worse, much worse. He married, but his wife left him because of his anger. Many years later, unable (I suppose) to control his anger, in a domestic dispute, the law enforcement came to quiet down the situation, but he had a gun in his hand. He threatened them, so they removed the threat. He never saw his 45th birthday.
There is a reason why the Holy Spirit speaks negatively about people who don’t control their anger, but are controlled by it.
To begin, they are unpredictable and in this unpredictability, they are unstable. They make other people uncomfortable and have them do nothing but walk on eggshells, relationships are fractured (if they exist) as a result of this. Correction from the Lord is infrequently accepted, much less from those family members who love them. What makes this worse is the hot-tempered man raises children to be like him.
“A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention” (Proverbs 15:18). Those who get hot under the collar quickly may blame others for this; in the end, however, they must answer the Lord for how they allowed others to control them.
There are a number of people very much aware of the vice they have with anger issues, and they work hard on getting it corralled. These people are to be encouraged in their journey, and we are to be patient. They will have success if they believe others around them support them in their hard journey.
Ron Thomas
Sunrush church of Christ
Chillicothe, OH