Right to be Angry? Posted October 02, 2007 by Ben Kunkel

Do you ever get angry over stupid stuff?  I know I do.  I often find myself getting upset over the silliest of things!  I get angry over things that I should never be angry about.  Jonah did the same thing.  He was so angry and bitter that he wanted the Lord to take his life.  What a miserable place to be!  In Jonah 4:4 God asked Jonah “Have you any right to be angry?”  Many times we have no right to be angry.   

 When I sit back and look at some of the stuff I allow to make me angry I realize it all comes back to how I respond.  Jonah’s response was anger that he allowed to become deep rooted bitterness because he thought God had unfair mercy on the wicked city of Nineveh.  I am so thankful that God has that kind of mercy because I need that kind of mercy!  I mess up often and I am glad he forgives me and accepts me.  

My favorite verse in all of Jonah is 4:2b “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”  Jonah knew God yet failed to recognize that the same God who was gracious and compassionate on Nineveh was gracious and compassionate to him. 

Many people have a flawed view that God is waiting around in heaven for us to mess up so he can squash us, when in reality he longs to show us his love.  In fact his greatest demonstration of that was 2,000 years ago we he sent his only Son, Jesus to die in our place for our sins! Wow! What love! (Romans 5:8)    

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