Minor Thoughts from me to you

I have a tendency towards quick anger. Every time life doesn't go my way -- kids want attention, wife needs something done (or leave something undone), customers want immediate answers, snow blankets the area, or idiots on the Beltline ruin my commute -- I get angry. I know that the world isn't treating my fairly and I resent having to put up with it.

Perhaps you've noticed, just from the tenor of some of my previous posts?

In the last year, God has shown me that my anger is really directed at him. After all, he's in control of everything. Why didn't he give me better kids, a better wife, more patient customers, better weather and better drivers? Doesn't he know whom I am? Does't he care? Slowly, He's been changing me. He's been making me more humble and less angry.

There's a new book I may want to pick up and read through.

Written by Wayne Mack and Deborah Howard it is titled simply It's Not Fair. Mack deals with the very attitude I had fallen into. "From years of personal and counseling experience," he writes, "I know that nothing is more damaging to us spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and behaviorally than responding to the unpleasant, unwanted, and (in our judgment) undeserved attitude of life with the 'it's not fair' attitude." We fight against this attitude with a properly knowledge of who God is. "Nothing is more helpful to us in overcoming the tragic results of being infected with the 'it's not fair' attitude than possessing the knowledge of who and what God really is and the implications of that knowledge."

In this book, Mack focuses on four aspects of God's character that he thinks are the most useful in counteracting and destroying the devastation brought about by the "it's not fair" attitude. He looks to God's wisdom, love, sovereignty and justice. These characteristics, taken individually and together, counter an attitude that we are somehow getting less than we deserve. "Sometimes we are angry at other people, and sometimes we're angry about situations or circumstances. Ultimately, we are angry with God, regardless of how well we disguise it--even to ourselves."