We started aquietwater to help us connect to God in a busy and distracted world. The idea being our prosperity had tricked us, and it was becoming increasingly easy to take our eyes off God with the busyness and distractions of modern life. With all that has happened in the last year and a half, a new issue to separate us has become imminent. We live in a busy, distracted, and increasingly angry world. Our focus is easily drawn away our long-term effective relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ due to dismay and anger over unexpected evil.

Anger can collapse us into a personal desire for vengeance and despair as we see our leaders and nation veer off course in ways we might never have thought possible. However, this is not an excuse to distance ourselves from God. For God is not surprised at evil, and in some ways the entire story of mankind’s creation, fall, and redemption deals with the problem of evil. Here are some ideas on how to not get our faith and witness swept away with the angry “spirit of the age” in which we live.

Realize God is angry too

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Romans 1:18)

I found knowing that God is angry too at the way things are extremely comforting. I had began to believe that God was unconcerned and aloof at suffering, oppression, and corruption. But a god who is not angry at these evils would not be a god of love. The Bible tells us that God is love. Our real living God is the opposite of aloof and uncaring. Our God is storing up wrath to unleash against evil. He also understands suffering. Jesus Christ chose to empty himself of his privilege and dwelt with us and suffered with us experiencing pain beyond comprehension on the cross.

Remember that God is on God’s side

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. (Joshua 5:13-14)

We should never assume God is automatically on our side. We should avoid at all costs arguments about whose side God is on. It is worth rereading the account of Joshua and the destruction of Jericho when he runs into the commander of the army of the Lord. God is on the side of his Word and is working his purposes out. We are all naturally in our flesh against God.

Let the Bible be our rallying point

So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11)

Even the best people can be inconsistent and sometimes hypocritical. We can always tell our enemy because our enemy will always support personality and power over the truth of the Bible. That is the reason we need to be focused on fighting for the Word of God. That is the only way to be sure to be on God’s side. We are usually less disciplined and conniving than the enemy and to fight on our own power is often suicidal. The children of Israel’s ill-timed first raid into the promised land against Moses advice and their bitter defeat of the Israelites in Deuteronomy 1:43 is a great example of fighting God’s battle without him. 

Our job is not vengeance

He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field,  but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.  So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.  And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’  He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’  But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’” (Mathew 13:24-30)

There will be a time when the wheat and chaff are separated out by God with perfect perception and accuracy and evil justly punished with a vengeance beyond our own ability to understand.

We must seek the Spirit despite everything

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

I once listened to a what I would describe “average” looking man around 6 feet tall explain how he played linebacker in the National Football League. He said that his unexpected success was due to his incredible focus. He would let nothing get in the way of where he was to where he needed to be. In an angry world, our enemy uses personal vengeful anger as a derailer of our efforts and a diffuser of good. Unchecked personal anger leaves us to sputter along powerlessly in self focus and confusion. We never win the battle for God forgetting the the fruit of the spirit. We should zero our eyes in on the goal given to us by God to make disciples of Christ exhibiting the fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control that goes beyond all worldly understanding.

Love without truth is manipulation and is a tool of the devil

The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a snare of death. (Proverbs 21:6)

Countless people, who would describe themselves as witnesses for Christ, have been destroyed by the desire to be seen as loving to the extent that they will discard truth to gain what they want. Whether it be a bigger church, more followers, influence, money, less criticism, or more recognition. These manipulators ultimately enable and give more boldness to those who oppose Christ bringing harm to the vulnerable and the innocent they often claim to stand for. We must avoid trying to do God’s work without God for self glorification. It is God’s fight, and we are his servants. 

Doug

The words of British poet Robert Abrahams say it well, “For some men die by shrapnel, And some go down in flames, But most men perish inch by inch, In play at little games.”  Our goal is to identify the little games and put a stop to them and put the right weight on the right things.