faith unfaded

Anger is a playground bully.

The loudest voice in the room is usually the most insecure.

Taylor Swift sang about a loudmouth journalist bully in Mean. The Karate Kid used martial arts to stand up to bullies. John Bender became a bully after years of being bullied by his own dad in A Breakfast Club.

They have commonalities with the bully of Anger.

Often a defense mechanism for pain, Anger is the personification of uncontrolled chaos in one’s heart.

It is Hurt’s mouthpiece.

Demons go out in pairs just as the disciples did. Satan knows the power of pairs; he employs such scriptural principles. After all, Heaven was his origin story.

He counteracts the power of the prayers of joined saints by pairing up his minions for our destruction. Anger and Hurt one of his favorite combos.

Anger is Hurt’s Cyrano de Bergerac, doing its bidding in deception. We focus on the one making the noise while the real life-sapping power lies in the silent sorrow of our hearts.

While your mind grabs Anger to self-medicate trauma and triggers in your life, it is the silent killer Hurt that keeps you away from family, friendships, and church.

It also keeps you from freedom in Christ.

It is a prison of pain, that invasive kudzu that wraps around your heart and mind and grows uncontrollably.

But the prison that feels like Alcatraz to you is really nothing more than a school carnival jail.

It’s a pretend cell without an actual padlock. You can play along or walk out anytime you want. His power is as binding as that corner spot on a Monopoly board.

You started the game with a Get Out of Jail Free card the moment you accepted Christ in your heart.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. Romans 16:20

Don’t stow this godly power away under the edge of the game board of life for future use. Turn it in now. It’s time to start playing again!

Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 1 Peter 2:16

Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free. Psalm 118:5