With Whom Should God be 'Angry'

Scripture:
If you’re going to be angry, be angry
with the pagans who care nothing about you,
or your rival kingdoms who ignore you.
They’re the ones who ruined Jacob,
who wrecked and looted the place where he lived.
Psalm 79:6-7

Observation: This psalm follows a theme similar to many of the psalms. Israel is in trouble, attacked by other nations, and the prayer to the Lord is that he protect Israel and punish the attackers, for it is Israel who believes in the Lord, and the aggressors are pagans who denounce and badmouth the Lord. These pagans destroy the Lord's temple, kill the Lord's people, and gloat and taunt the Lord himself while doing it. Meanwhile, the faithful should not be punished because either their parents or a subset of the current victims failed to obey the Lord.

This prayer has logic ... the Lord should punish those who fully and completely reject and blasphemy him, not those who pray regularly, offer their sacrifices, sing worship, yet sometimes disobey his orders, and mix in a few other gods and their rituals into their daily lives.

We know the Lord will respond. All those nations that rejected and blasphemed and attacked and killed - Moab, Aramea, Edom, Amon, Assyria, Babylon, etc. - don't exist anymore. However, the Lord also had every reason to be angry with Israel, because ... they knew the full truth about Yahweh, and chose other options.

Application: This is the curse that is upon me every time I ask the Lord to "take care" of the current situation within our nation and our culture. The Lord should be so very, very angry with those who actively reject him and deny him and openly declare him to be meaningless or non-existent. And he WILL take care of that. However, how angry must the Lord be at me when I pray to him, seek his spirit and will, worship him, declare my love for him, and then gloat over 'my' success, swear in anger at others, leer at a young woman, or covet a little more money for a good trip or other fineries for my home?

Yes, the Lord is angry at those who attack him, but he is also patient and loving. He wants them to discover him, repent, and believe in Jesus. However, for those of us who do believe, there is no 'future' decision ... our wrongdoing right now is rebellion in need of correction.

Maybe "anger" isn't the right word for the Lord's response to my wrongdoing, but certainly he has a right to be angry with his believers - his Church - that fights and whines and sins and gossips and judges.

I should have two commands in my life: Love God; Love people. If I truly lived those two things 24/7, surely the Lord's anger would never come my way.

Prayer: Lord, I have prayed for a changed and softened heart. May I continue to evolve and change in that way, so I may live in your love only all the days of my life, and into eternity. Amen.