Armchair QB

Before we get into the message, I have a bone to pick with song writers...or maybe it is with the worship leaders who pick the songs...or maybe it is just with the people who robustly sing the praise chorus....either way:

Do we mean the words we sing? St. Augustine said, "He who sings prays twice." Do we think of the words we are singing as prayers or just catchy words that go with a cool beat and geez, we don't want to appear like a dork and not sing....

Sometimes I resent words being put in my mouth, literally, but today as I struggled with the emotions of being back in my home church with my church family...well, being wholly surrendered to God's will seemed a little much.

I desire it, I desire to be relaxed and trusting, but I cannot honestly even say I am "mostly" surrendered. I am still working on it.

But I sang the song because I didn't want to look like a dork. Just kidding... I sang with a heart full of desire and fear, asking her Father to hold her hand thru this.

I know I cannot be the only person out there who thinks about what we sing, am I?

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"Taming My Temper" was the message for this Sunday. For the text, George used the NLT translation of Proverbs 16:32, but I think I like the ESV even better:

Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

I admit I am a bit of a hothead. My husband's pet name for my fiery personality is "Hellcat." Tells you a lot, doesn't it?

Once upon a time, when I was much younger, I didn't get angry. My husband's little name for my personality then was, "Doormat."

Not sure either one is particularly good. Perhaps someday I will get a new name for a new way of relating with the word, but the point is that anger is necessary. Even God gets angry, tho He is "slow to anger," a phrase usually written about God and essentially translated as patient.

Again St. Augustine shows up to help me out in this post, this time mentioned in the message regarding his idea of disordered lives.

Essentially, George explained it, disordered loves are when we elevate something to a position of being ultimate...loving it in a wrong way...

Hmmm, can anyone say idolatry?

On way of determining what the cause of our anger is would be to ask, "What am I defending?" I think of my own anger-I have made an idol out of my free time, my money, my relationship and on. Oh, so many things to be angry about, so many idols to serve.

And, yet.....here it comes......I am wholly surrendered?! Not a chance.

Father, forgive me for all the stupid, petty things I put between You and me.