Tuesday, October 09, 2007

What are you angry about?

I'm a football fan and I support Chelsea FC, probably not the most popular club around at the moment, but nevertheless, I am a Chelsea fan.

As some of you might know, Chelsea lost the most successful manager in their history a few weeks ago, to be replaced by someone who on the face of it is not qualified for the job.

I admit, it felt like someone had died. I was very upset by it all for a while. Lots of people still are.

But my reaction worried me, because it was full of anger, hatred and judgement. Lacking any perspective.

I was angry at the club, at the owner and was writing insults of our new manager on a fans forum, making rash judgements about the new manager and getting into verbal online spats with people.

I was out of my mind.

This seriously worried me the more I thought about it. Because I was getting very angry about something which in the whole scheme of things really isn't important.

There are people dying of hunger.

There are millions homeless.

There are thousands with serious diseases and millions in poverty.

There is injustice and oppression in this world.

THOSE are the things I should be getting upset about, that should pain my heart, that should fire me up to take action. They matter. They are God's people and the West is either ignoring or abusing them.

Its not right.

Jesus calls out to us and shows us these are the people we need to be serving, blessing, loving and giving to.

What do you get angry about that really isn't necessary?

Want a better car?
92% of people in the world don't even have a car of any kind.

Not enough money?
In the West we usually have more loose change than somebody earns in a day in some countries. People die of poverty every single day.

Bad job?
A lot of people work 10 hours a day in unhealthy, hot conditions, poorly treated by their bosses for an absolute pittance - locked in with out any break at all.

The things below are all very and real issues facing us today...

Injustice.
Poverty.
Suffering.
Pain.
Slavery.
Exploitation.
Oppression.
People ignored, rejected.
Homelessness.
Disease.
People losing loved ones.

All this, and I'm getting angry about football.

These things go on in our world right now. Its not what Jesus wants. He takes action against it and tells us to do the same.

These are the things to get angry about - and instead of reacting to this anger by shouting and screaming, react as Jesus reacted to His own anger - by doing something about it. Jesus was angry with the Pharisees in Mark - he looked at them in anger - and he reacted by healing someone, an act of love, compassion which added something good to the world.

Lets use our anger as a tool to drive us to do something about things that do matter. Blessing and serving each other, even in the small little unseen things in our own communities, as well as doing something about the big problems in the world.

We have anger inside of us. God gets angry and we are made in His image.

That anger is there for a reason - lets use it for good, instead of using it to shout and scream or get upset about something as trivial as football.

What are you getting angry about?