Walking a Fine Line

SCRIPTURE: Tremble [with anger or fear], and do not sin. Psalm 4:4
Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Ephesians 4:26 NIV

QUOTE: Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and of vigour has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. – Franklin D. Roosevelt Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933*

THOUGHT: It was 1933 and the country was terrorized by The Great Depression. Fear was rampant, collapse was aggregate, anger was evident. Roosevelt acknowledges it, going on to say, “Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment. And yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered, because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily, this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence.”

It’s 2022, and we walk a fine line. While it is still true that fear is our great enemy, and that we are stricken by no plague of locusts; that ours is not a failure of substance but of stubbornness and incompetence and greed, it is not true that our fears are due to “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.”

These thoughts are my constant companion – my question as a Christ-follower is how then shall we live?

Scripture addresses fear basically non-stop, so we are on firm ground to confront that enemy with spiritual armor firmly in place. Anger, which so often flows out of fear, is not condemned as an emotion by Scripture, but we are coached to use discipline in expressing it. Solomon says, “Mockers stir up a city, but the wise turn away anger (Proverbs 29:8)” and “Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools (Ecc. 7:9)” and “Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control (Proverbs 25:28).”

So let’s walk that fine line, not giving in to fear, and using anger judiciously, without sin. Let’s remember that going to bed angry is like saying we don’t really trust our keeping to God’s great care. Like refusing rest in the midst of turmoil, or green pastures in the midst of a desert.

PRAYER: Oh God, so often I am afraid and angry about what I cannot control. Give me the wisdom to push back against fear and make room for trust. Give me the discipline to use righteous anger as a tool, under your control, for your purposes.

*If you’d like to read Roosevelt’s entire speech, navigate here: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/