“Don’t call it being crabby, irritable, or hot-headed. We often speak in terms of anger coming from a source other than ourselves. We use victim terminology. We ‘lose our temper’ because he ‘makes us so angry.’”
(Clint Archer – The Cripplegate) When I was a really little kid a cheesy 80’s horror movie hit the big screen. It was called Gremlins. The story is about a boy who finds a small, furry, odd-looking creature called a mogwai that seems as harmless as a hamster. But you discover that if this unassuming little pet stays up past midnight, and has a snack, it morphs into a grotesque, brutally violent monster called a Gremlin. Like I said, it was the 80’s.
I begged my parents to let me watch it. All the kids at school were talking about it. My folks wisely refused. The movie was a box office hit and soon spawned merchandise like the fluffy toy version of the mogwai. As compensation for not allowing me to see the film, they bought me a fluffy toy mogwai to add to the posse of teddy bears on my bed.
One day I was at a friend’s house for a sleepover, and his parents said we could watch Gremlins. I didn’t sleep a wink that night, and when I got home I was too scared to go into my room because I now knew what my mogwai was capable of if he was fed after midnight. I had nightmares for months, and donated my toy mogwai to some unsuspecting neighbors so that it could torment other little kids and leave me alone.
The Bible talks about another insipid danger which people consider mostly harmless but which also turns into an evil monster when it is fed after midnight. It’s called anger. Previously we looked at Instructions on how to repent and then specifically, how to repent of lying. Today we turn our attention to excising anger.
Eph 4:26-27 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.
How To Kill The Gremlin Of Anger…
Clint Archer’s series: