The Deadliest Sin?

I grew up in a traditional Southern Baptist church and remember hearing lots about the evils of sins like drinking alcohol, lust, adultery and gambling.

But through the first 17 years of my life I don't remember a pastor ever once take aim at rage.

Maybe our religious culture is more tolerant of anger than adultery or drunkeness because we accept it's inevitable that eventually we'll get pushed too far ... and a fiery explosion seems not only justified but required.

Maybe we've had a temper outburst or two in the past and see getting results with anger as an advantage, a secret weapon holstered to our egos. I mean admit it, isn't it fun making someone else squirm, grovel and cower? Isn't it better to turn the tables and be the bully this time around?

And after a blow up, we like to imagine our wrath-weapon provokes knee-trembling fear and dread among the folks who'll straighten up pretty darn quick rather than risk facing the A-bomb again.

The Anger Bomb.

My anger, rage and hostility is always just under the surface ... and I struggle with keeping them there, and under control, more than I do with anything else.

Even if we express our rage without screaming ... by glaring, snorting and huffing, turning our cheeks red or suddenly going silent in mid-scream (our way of warning, "Be glad I'm stopping myself and not saying anything else 'cause I'd pinch your head off!") the fact remains that sometimes we actually enjoy discovering our saint-like patience is exhausted, that we've finally "been pushed too far"... because then we feel entitled to start the war dance on somebody else's face and makes ourselves and the thing we want the center of attention.

Anger has a way of making us see ourselves as powerful and in control. And that's important ... when we're focused on Me.

Anger is justified in extreme situations (like throwing money changers out of your house, or in matters of life and death requiring urgent and immediate action), but otherwise throwing a temper tantrum merely signals others that your self-importance has reached critical mass because you're unhappy about not getting your own way.

I can't find a passage anywhere in The Gospels that indicate Christ taught the Apostles through conceit or coercion: even when dealing with the money-changers in the temple Jesus's anger didn't consist of cheap emotional barbs, or sarcastic jabs hurled for His own amusement.

Even compared to the so-called "big" sins ... adultery, stealing, drunkeness ... none exposes the shortcomings and weaknesses in our walk with Christ, or leaves us so vulnerable to the enemy as completely, as anger.

Not even murder, because murder almost inevitably begins with anger.

If we allow the enemy to use anger, wrath or rage to re-focus our attention, it's inevitable he'll try to soothe our frustrations and reward our tantrums by increasing our sense of self-importance ... through simultaneously reducing our determination to preserve our witness as followers of Christ.

Ever noticed how we never give the boss "a good ice-chewing" or toss intidimation in his or her direction? And it seems we hardly ever "lose it" with people we respect or "ream out" someone whose opinion we trust and value.

I used red above to highlight the point that it's the people we perceive as being beneath us who're most likely to be the recipients of our self-righteous fury even though the thing we're angry about is inside of us ... and has nothing to do with them.

The fact that we still yearn for and need the respect of people we've sent crawling away on all fours with singed backsides ought to be a reminder that no one has more control over what we say and how we behave than we do ... and how weak, conceited and self-absorbed our anger and sarcasm makes us appear in their eyes.