"But God said to Jonah," Are you right about the plant so much? Of course I have it! "He answered," I'm dying of rage!" Jonah 4: 9 NIV
In the thirteenth century an important Catholic philosopher named St. Thomas Aquinas exposed a classification of the so-called "Capital Sins"; in such a classification, anger is cataloged as the fourth capital sin. On the other hand, Dante Alighieri in his mythical work the "Divine Comedy", presents the condemned for this sin as inhabited in the "seventh circle of hell" "divided into three stone circles and surrounded by a great river of blood." However, despite these human classifications, the Bible is not condemned to anger in itself as a sin. On the contrary, he makes a clear distinction by saying: "Be angry, but do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26). Besides, at least a dozen times the Scripture speaks of the wrath of God and it is absurd to think that God can commit one of the so-called "deadly sins".
Now then, what is the problem with anger? I think it's the problem with anger in the body: what caused it and what it derived. In this opportunity I want to focus on the first of the problems and in Jonah we have a clear example of it. Chapter 4 of Jonah is the part of the story of this character that was more times uncomfortable than was mentioned. They present us with an irritated and even "spoiled" Jonah. Angry because God spared the lives of the inhabitants of Nineveh, and then angry because God dried a plant. On both occasions Jonah exclaimed and expressed his desire to prefer to die before seeing what was happening (v. 3,9). On both occasions, God also says: "Are you right to be so angry?" (V. 4.9).
It is important to note that Jonah was very upset about two things: the first of it, because of the mercy that God had extended to a people. It is interesting that many times, without realizing it, we get angry because we do not agree with the case of God. If we analyzed many of our "tantrums", we would realize that anger is because God did not do things as we wanted and this is very related to pride, which is clearly a sin.
The second thing that makes you angry is Jonah is the death of a pumpkin. And again, God asks: "Are you right to lock up so much for the plant?" It's as if the Lord said to him, "Please, Jonah, are you saying something about what is causing your anger?" Many of our lives are absurd. Jonah was upset about a plant that, as the Lord tells him, "without effort on your part, creation in one night and in the other reason" (v. 10). But if we analyze the
situation in depth, we will realize that Jonah was not upset by the plant itself, because we no longer had it in the shade. That is, because it affected their comfort or their own interests.
Many of our lives are caused by someone else's cause, but because we have many of my comforts or my interests. They touch my pride or our image. That is why to heal in health it is important to analyze what may be giving rise to our anger. It is not wrong to get upset or angry for noble and even just causes. What is wrong is having things that have to do with the behavior of God or for selfish reasons. Both ways of thinking are linked to pride and that is why you have to avoid them.
Therefore, if the things that are causing anger have to be related to that with God, you are doing things, for vain and superficial reasons, for selfish interests, or for things that you do not have grown up, ask the Lord to help you to order your emotions and see things from his perspective.
