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Key Bible Verse: He looked around at them angrily, because he was deeply disturbed by their hard hearts (Mark 3:5). Bonus Reading: Psalm 103:6–11

I am a descendent of angry men. My great-grand-father, a Dutch Reformed minister, is said to have cursed his Heavenly Father following the deaths of his wife and two daughters from tuberculosis. Though one doesn't curse what one doesn't believe to exist, the image of his clenched fist shaken in the face of heaven has long been with me.

His son, my grandfather, one day came home from work to discover that a neighbor had emptied the contents of his cesspool next to the sand pile where his son and daughter played across the street. My grandfather threatened to hoist the neighbor up by his ankles if every trace of filth wasn't removed within 24 hours. "And when you're finished, you cheap Holland bastard," he roared, "get down on your knees and pray."

I used to help my father work on his cars, and it was rare that we could finish a job without at least one minor flare-up.

But I first read the Gospels from a New Testament presented by my great-grand-father to my father. That heritage ensured that my Dutch temper could seldom exist without Christian remorse, nor Christian meekness without some inner resistance. [continued 6/18]

—Garret Keizer in The Enigma of Anger

My Response: The reason I can relate to Garret is …

Thought to Apply: A man is as big as the things that make him angry. —Winston Churchill (British prime minister)

Adapted from The Enigma of Anger (Jossey-Bass, 2002) by permission.

Prayer for the Week

Lord, empower me to channel my emotions so that I'm a guided missile, not a loose cannon.

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