The Grapes of Wrath

 

 “Then said the LORD, ‘Doest thou well to be angry?’”

Jonah 4:4

I want to talk a little about wrath... and spit.

When my uncle was a child, he had a bad habit of spitting on everyone. My grandmother, of course, punished him, placing him in a corner to think about his actions.

And so, he sat there, with this strange look on his face. When my grandmother asked him what he was doing, he replied, “I’m making more spit!”

Spiritual translation:

 “For we are consumed by thine anger...”

Psalm 90:7

And, when I was in kindergarten, I went to a petting zoo. There were llamas there.

Llamas… an interesting creature.

So, anyway, next to the various animal pens were feed dispensers. You could feed those critters and add squealing joy, excitement and education to your little ones’ lives.

So, I fed raccoons, deer and goats.

However, when we got the llamas’ area, there was sign:

 “Do not feed the llamas. They spit.”

Can you guess what I did next?

Uh-huh.

Can you guess what happened?

Uh-huh.

Everything seemed fine. I thought the llamas certainly wouldn’t mind being fed by moi.

I was wrong- in the French, English- and any other language on the planet. What looked like an innocent ice cream cone of feed turned into a locked and loaded weapon of “eww,” soon to blow up in my face.

 “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”

Proverbs 15:1

Childhood memories.

Anyway, more lessons about wrath.

And, more recently, I’ve come across this internet image of angry grapes, titled, appropriately enough, “the grapes of wrath.”

 

This humorous post should again serve to remind us just how out of control and ridiculous we can be when our angry selves get the better of us.

 “Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.”

Ecclesiastes 7:9

We look like these guys.

With lit torches, or, at least, lit matches, angry grimaces, wild eyes and a line formation in front of rubber duckies (I don’t understand that staging at all????), we are ready to demolish the city, storm the castle, rage and take over everything, simply because we are upset.

Sounds off kilter, doesn’t it.

We are consumed. And this does not make us peaceful.

And, inevitably, if we push things, we encounter trouble.

 “For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.”

Psalm 90:7

Yay.

There is no disputing anger is tricky...and human. And we’ve all had experiences in which we lost it, complete with spit, maniacal eyes and destructive actions.

Again, this can be a human response to a little thing called life.

Yet we do have within us, should we prioritize and choose to access it, self-control- and the ability to make another, non- destructive decision...

“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

 “The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.”

Proverbs 19:11

 “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”

Proverbs 16:32

These realities are, indeed, worth considering and however imperfectly, practicing.

And we have the power of our free will choice.

So, what do we choose?

The grapes of wrath?

 Or the glory of our God-given self-control?

Copyright © 2016 by Sheryle Cruse