“A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a
wise man keeps himself under control. “
– Proverbs 29:11
Jesus got angry, or so every angry person would have you believe. Usually folks who make this statement are trying to justify their own anger. After all if Jesus got angry, then no one can blame me for being angry. The problem is that this statement is grossly overstated.
To prove their point, angry people use the story of Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple (Mark 11, Matthew 21, Luke 19, John 2). Before anyone accuses Jesus of anger in that story, he or she ought to read the story again. Nowhere do the Scriptures say that Jesus was angry. Jesus was bothered. Jesus was troubled. Jesus was determined to stop unrighteousness. Jesus was not angry.
This is easy to understand when a person looks at what anger does. Anger puts a person into an impaired mental state and reduces one’s ability to grasp ambiguity or see any nuance in a situation. Anger gives us an adrenalin rush which clouds our ability to make judgments. This is not the emotion that Jesus was experiencing when he drove the crooked merchants out of the temple. Jesus did not “lose it.” With a clear mind, Jesus removed scam artists from the temple area.
There is one time in the Bible that says Jesus experienced anger. In Mark 3, the Bible says that Jesus “look around…in anger.” Read the text and you will find that the only way you know Jesus was angry is that the Scriptures tells us so. He did not hit anyone. He did not call anyone a name. He did not shout at anyone. He did not get red-faced. He was angry, but he dealt with it quietly and then he helped a man.
If you want to be angry like Jesus, then that is your example.
We all love happy endings.
Poets know this and so end their fairy tales with “and they lived happily ever after.” The great old cowboy movies often ended with the cowboy victoriously riding off into the purple sunset. Feel-good movies all have happy endings. We hear those happy endings and see those purple sunsets and long for that in our life. The real secret of happiness is not in those purple sunsets, but in the chance to start over – to begin again.
- The prodigal son far from home, broke, and hungry, did the one thing he could. He went home. He started over. He began again.
- Hezekiah on his deathbed repents of his failures and starts over. God lets him begin again.
- Joseph sold into slavery, cast into prison, and forgotten by his friends, began again. It took two years, but instead of losing faith, he waited with patience. When his door to home was closed, he knew that some greater door would open (Gen 50:20).
In “The Land of Beginning Again,” L.F. Tarkington wrote,
I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again
Where all of our mistakes, and all of our heartaches,
And all of our poor, selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door
And never be put on again.
At some time or another in our life, we all long for that land of beginning again “where all our mistakes” can “be dropped like a shabby old coat.”
In the end of this life, what we are promised is a new start. John, gazing into heaven, wrote, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev 21:1). Even eternity will be a chance to start over.
Birthdays are special. Thanksgiving is wonderful, and Christmas can be great, but I’ll take New Year’s Day anytime. It doesn’t have all the presents associated with it. It is not a special time of giving, but it is a day we associate with beginning again.
“For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity” (Proverbs 24:16).
Righteous people do fall down, but they get up and begin again.
Lonnie Davis
Everyone Fails
You have to love the spirit of Arthur Pedrick. Between 1962 and 1977 Arthur patented 162 inventions. Among other inventions, Arthur patented a bicycle with amphibious capability, a golf ball that could be steered in flight, and a way to supply water to the deserts of the world by keeping a constant supply of Arctic snowballs flying to the deserts with giant peashooters located in the Arctic.
What about his spirit is there to love? In the face of failure after failure, Arthur never quit trying. In 1902, the poetry editor of Atlantic Monthly returned a stack of poems to an aspiring poet. This note accompanied the unpublished poems, “Our magazine has no room for your vigorous verse.” The aspiring poet’s name is Robert Frost. In 1905, the University of Bern turned down a doctoral dissertation as “irrelevant and fanciful.” That aspiring scholar was Albert Einstein. In 1894, a teenager named Winston Churchill had a note on his report card which noted his “conspicuous lack of success.”
Faith is not just belief. Faith is a belief that allows one to keep on keeping on, even in the face of failure. Before he was the leader of a nation, Moses was a 40-year-old failure, running from the Pharaoh. Before he was a preacher on Pentecost, Peter lied and denied that he even knew Jesus. Before he penned the Gospel of Mark, he offended the Apostle Paul so much that Paul would not even take Mark on a missionary trip with him.
It is not your failures that define you. It is how many times you are willing to fail and then try again. Everyone remembers Will Rogers for his great wit and sense of humor. He did not start out as a humorist. He started out as an act that entertained audiences with rope tricks. One day, in the middle of his act, Will failed. He got tangled up in his ropes. Facing people who had paid money to see him do rope tricks, he said, “A rope ain’t so bad to get tangled up in if it ain’t around your neck.” The audience roared. He loved their response to his humor. His failure changed his life.
Failure is not a sin. As the Bible says, “The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again. But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked.” (Proverbs 24:16). You have only failed with you quit trying. There is a difference between saying, “I have failed” and “I am a failure.” Everyone fails, but not everyone is a failure.
Lonnie Davis