Parakalein

I read a devotional thought that used the lead in "Does God get mad?".  As i read it I got mad as it took no position on the issue.  Choosing rather to say everyone has different thoughts about this and that is okay.  So I was hooked as I was mad.  What was I mad at or about?  I expected one thing and got another.  It was my expectations that fueled my anger or mad part.

In Genesis 6:5-8 it is reported that when God saw that "all the inclination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil all the time.  The Lord was grieved that he had made humanity, placed them on earth, and his heart was filled with pain...and the Lord said I will wipe humankind whom I had made from the face of the earth". Was this an angry God?  A God full of wrath and vengeance?  A God with no compassion.

Yes to the first and no to the second.

Anger is Godly.  It becomes less than Godly when we do not express it and it becomes "depression" and it becomes less than Godly when we express it in extreme ways without compassion, calmness and care.

God does get angry and we need to let our selves be angry but as Paul says, "not sin".  We sin when we attack ourselves with depression or others with aggression.  Anger is never the problem.  How we manage it is.

God while angry had compassion and calmness in his heart toward humanity.  While God was hurt and angry God was also compassionate and caring.

Noah saw grace in the eyes of God and not just anger.  I want people to see anger in my eyes when I am angry but I also want them to see love and compassion.  Everyone who could see both the anger for unfilled expectations and anticipations and the abundance of compassion were able to find safety in the Ark of Grace that God had provided.  Do you think that anyone who swam to that ark in faith believing in the Grace of God would have been turned away, there fingers stepped on as they tried to get into the boat of compassion and care.  I think they would have been welcomed.

Those who died in the flood died not in the deluge of the water that flooded their towns (natural calamity) but in the deluge of their own delusions that God did not care, that they were okay, and that God's grace was not available.  They died without hope not because there was none but because they lost sight of hope. Eyes on hope can change your view of God and the calamities of life.  Meet calamities with calmness and compassion.

Be angry but keep space in your heart for compassion and let your inner critic parts and others see it in your eyes.