Proverbs 29:22
“A man of wrath stirs up strife, and one given to anger causes much transgression.”
Don’t get caught in the gravitational pull of impulsive anger. You can’t make good decisions with bad information, and impulsive anger will give you bad information. This is because there are three things that anger doesn’t want: precision, patience, and perspective.
It doesn’t want precision. Impulsive anger isn’t interested in truth or accuracy. It doesn’t care about the actual facts of the situation. Anger finds (or fabricates) confirming evidence to justify being upset. Mismanaged anger is an unguided missile.
It doesn’t want patience. Impulsive anger reacts quickly and without thinking. It doesn’t wait or want to gain understanding. It is impetuous and impatient. It is rash. Anger will say and do reckless things.
It doesn’t want perspective. Impulsive anger does not want to see the bigger picture. It doesn’t care about a different viewpoint or another opinion. Anger has tunnel vision. It fixates on what it is mad about and is blind to everything else. Anger cannot see what it cannot see.
This is why James 1.20 says, “The anger of man does not work the righteousness of God.”
It is why Proverbs 16.32 says, “Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.”
The battle is in the mind. Everyone wants external victory and success, but to win the battle on the outside you must first win the battle on the inside. If you don’t do the inner work, you will be at the mercy of external circumstances and internal impulses. Your mind either builds bridges that move you forward, or it builds barriers that hold you back.
Where your mind goes, you go. Trust God and do the inner work.
