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This is the daily devotion from the book, “Holding On and Letting Go” and the companion audio from the July 8, 2021 live social media broadcast of encouragement and prayer by Impact Prayer Ministry’s director, Tom Lemler.

Here is day four and an important reminder to check your anger and deal with it in a godly way.

Let Go Of Anger

“‘In your anger do not sin’: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” 
(Ephesians 4:26-27)

Does the current chaos you are experiencing make you angry?  Should it?  How does anger influence the way you respond to both people and your situation?  Does anger typically cause a good or bad response?  Explain.  How will letting go of anger free you to see your situation more clearly?

Anger is a natural emotion and reaction, especially when faced with unexpected and unreasonable loss.  The problem with anger in the midst of chaos is that it tends to cloud the vision of both our mind and our eyes.  When the Bible says, “in your anger do not sin”, I believe the instruction is to acknowledge our anger and deal with it so that we can let it go before it infects our actions.  While there may be things, circumstances, and even people that you feel you have a right to be angry with, feeding the anger will only make it grow to the point that it adds to the problem.  Letting go of the anger allows us to address the chaos, and even address the cause of the chaos, from a healthy position of resolution rather than hatred.  When we learn to be angry at the right things, we find that we can allow God to use our anger as an internal motivation for us to make changes we need to make.  It is then that we are able to let go of that anger so that we can begin to see hope in the midst of our chaos.  Unresolved and/or unaddressed anger destroys hope and it is in the addressing and resolving of our anger that we find we can let the anger go and allow hope to grow.

As you pray, ask God to help you understand why you feel angry, and specifically who or what you feel angry toward.  Pray that you would not simply attempt to hide the anger, but address it in ways that allow you to let go of it.  Pray that you would know the hope that comes through letting go of anger after it has been dealt with.

In prayer,
Tom