OK, be honest with
yourself; have you ever experienced Road Rage?
No? I think you are not being
honest with yourself. Simply put, Road
Rage is where an individual or individuals experience anger at something
another individual does while driving.
Can you tell me that you have never been angry at something someone did
while you were out driving? I know I
have. In fact, just last Friday, while
traveling down California Highway 99 on my way to an awards ceremony,
someone had the audacity to pull on to the highway from a side road almost
right in front of me causing me to stomp on the breaks a bit. My first thought was, “Is that guy crazy?!” My first thought was the beginning of Road Rage. So
now, be honest with yourself. Have you
ever experienced Road Rage?
Well, maybe your
Road Rage was not as strong or severe as the rage that caused former New
Orleans Saint’s defensive end, Will Smith, to lose his life and end with his
wife also being wounded this week,
but rage is anger and it is easy to sin when angry. The apostle Paul knew how destructive anger
could be. Before he gave his life over
to the Lord, as the man named Saul he vented what he believed to be righteous
anger at a sect of Hebrews who were following a man (Jesus) who had died as a heretic
of the Jewish faith. He let his anger
fuel his hatred to propel him to persecute the believers of Jesus. Yet, when he had an encounter with Jesus he
did an abrupt turnaround and his anger turned into belief of just Who Jesus is
and he ended up evangelizing throughout much of the Roman Empire. If anyone could speak about anger, it is Paul
and here is what he had to say,
“Be
ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil…let all
bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away
from you, with all malice: and be
ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for
Christ's sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:26-27, 31-32 KJV). Paul knew what the answer for anger was.
Most people I know
when quizzed as to what the opposite of anger is say “love”. The Bible never said this. We know the
opposite of love is fear (1 John 4:18).
I like how Eph. 4:32b puts it, “forgiving
one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you”. I submit to you that the opposite of anger is
forgiveness. We know that when someone
offends us we are to forgive him (Luke 17:3-4; Eph 4:32; Mark 11:25; Matthew
18:20-22). Anger seems to have no room
to grow or fester when forgiveness fills our hearts. Maybe also, not so ironically, love also grows
where forgiveness prevails and forgiveness grows out of a love-motivated
heart. So, it seems that forgiveness and
love go hand in hand helping one another to motivate us to the work God calls
us to (Eph. 4:2; Rom. 14:8; Gal 5:13; 1 John 4:7).
So what should we
do the next time someone cuts us off in traffic or hits our vehicle in a
fender-bender? My hope and prayer is
that we are already practicing forgiveness and love, and then it will be our
automatic response! Do you want
forgiveness and love to be your “second nature”? Start practicing it now.
