“Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah” Psalm 4:4
Devotion
Psalm 4 teaches us how to pray when we are in trouble, but it also trains us how to respond when we are in trouble. More particularly, it trains us how to respond when the trouble coming at us is from other people around us. I bet most of us would be shocked that the Bible tells us to “be angry,” but right here in Psalm 4:4, that is what it says.
Anger actually isn’t bad—it can’t be because the Bible tells us that God is angry. So we must approach anger with more clarity. Most of our experiences with anger are bad because it is sinful anger. But there is a holy anger, like what we see in God. Holy anger is our response to something that we know is not right. And it is holy anger when it aligns with God’s assessment and when it aligns with God’s commands.
Here, David is telling us that sometimes we need to be angry. Anger is the correct response. If we aren’t ever angry, then we aren’t living a healthy life. Jesus got angry, and we know that Jesus never sinned. But, we are called to be angry in a way that isn’t sinful. That means we must use self-control to ensure that we are angry about what God has told us we should be angry about and that our anger is expressed in ways that align with the word of God.
One of the appropriate expressions of our holy anger is to sit in silence and allow the situation to fill our hearts. We may find that our anger simply leads us to God in prayer, which is sometimes the only option we have when things are not right. Or we may find that God uses our anger to fuel some action for His glory. But either way, anger is good when it aligns with God’s heart and is expressed in God’s way.
Prayer
Father, we are fully aware that our anger gets us in trouble. We are so selfish that often we are angry about the wrong things. And as often as we are angry about the wrong things, we are just as tempted to express our anger in sinful ways—even when we are angry about the right things. We desperately need Your wisdom to help us navigate our anger well.
But Lord, we also know that at times we aren’t angry enough. We don’t hate what You hate. We aren’t zealous enough for Your name and for Your glory. So we ask for the right kind of anger, so that we can be like Jesus.
Holy Spirit, fill us with Your self-control so that we can be angry without sinning. Every time we encounter something that is not right, we ask that You would inflame our hearts and restrain our hearts. We need You to regulate our emotions and our responses according to Your word. Please help us to be more holy in every way. In Jesus’ name, we worship and pray.
Amen.
