What are you mad about? It's safe to say that we live in an angry world. In fact, Forbes published  an article recently about how, for several years now, acts of anger and aggression keep escalating. Social media encourages us to feel and express more moral outrage because those expressions get more likes than other posts. It has become a huge problem because much of the time, the anger and vitriol exchanged online is never accounted for, it is simply lobbed onto someone else, inflicting hurt. So, what do we do with our anger? Should we simply ignore it? Should we go to Smash City Rage Room and just let it out? Ignoring or immersing ourselves in anger is not a good idea and has negative consequences. What we need is to learn to live with integrity by integrating our anger into our walk with God.

We can’t integrate anger by trying hard not to be angry. We have to aim at something deeper. We have to learn to pay attention to the thing beneath the thing. When we reflect on what we are angry about, an important tool we have is curiosity. What is underneath our anger? Is it Hurt? Frustration? Fear? We can then bring the roots of our anger to the Lord in prayer and each other rather than continue to ruminate on the wrongs done to us. That is easier said than done! Jesus addresses the important issue of anger in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:20-24). We can learn from Him how anger can become a redemptive tool in our lives not a destructive power.