"In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your heart and be silent. Selah" Psalm 4:4It's amazing how short is my fuse when I fall out of sync with my scripture reading and prayer time, when I forget to talk to God and forget to let Him talk to me. I wake up angry, spend most of the day's energy controlling that ill-sourced frustration, and go to bed exhausted. Add three kids and a busy schedule. Mix. Not a nice picture. I've become pretty good at pushing it down for the sake of no-regret parenting (and therapy is expensive), but I feel like the angry beast is just below the surface, waiting for the right moment to pounce.
It reminds me of what God said to Cain right before he...
you know...
slaughtered his brother.
"Then the LORD said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.'" Genesis 4:6-7
It's a pretty good description of how I feel sometimes. We have this evil thing. This angry evil thing. It is waiting for the right moment when the door opens so that it can devour us. Eeek.
So we must master it.
How?
The psalm.
Search your heart and be silent.
Yes. At the end of the day, as we reflect on the day's frustrations, we should search our hearts in the silence. But really, it needs to be preemptive. It's also when we wake. The moment before throwing off the covers and smacking the alarm.
Search your heart and be silent.
I think I'll give it a go.
