“A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.”

                                                                                                            Proverbs 29:11 NIV

I saw a story today about an incident in Ohio, where a woman flies into an absolute rage and attacks the drive-up clerk at a McDonald’s restaurant because she couldn’t get an order of Chicken McNuggets. The situation got so out of control that the woman ends up smashing the drive-up window with a beer bottle before she’s arrested. As an excuse for her conduct, the woman initially claims that she suffers from panic attacks, but as it turns out later she was just drunk.

I realize that panic disorders are very real phenomena and that approximately 6 million Americans have been diagnosed as suffering from these emotional maladies. Also that alcaholism is an ever growing problem in our country. However at what point do we quit accepting excuses for just plain, unrestrained, explosive, out of control conduct towards other people and begin holding people responsible for their actions. Self restraint is the highest form of wisdom, it doesn’t mean that anger is bad, but anger has no mind of its own, it simply rages in order to satisfy itself. We claim all the time how much we hate being controlled, yet we willingly give ourselves over to the will of feral rage to seek a fleeting moment of satisfaction, rather than experiencing the lasting contentment of waiting on God’s perfect timing to satisfy our deepest needs, and it lasts a long, long, long time.

-Pastor Craig