When we look at our social media, news media, and television everyone is quick to make a response. They narrate general conclusions that metastasize into rage inducing reactions. This gives whomever controls the narrative ratings and implants their own lies even further into their consciousness. Rage is a cheap emotion. It doesn’t produce deductive reasoning skills. It starves the mind of empathy and compassion. If you want a society that functions well, you should want to curb rage as much as possible.

James 1:19-21 (NASB):

“This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.”

When a news story breaks do we contemplate this verse? The answer to the question is unequivocally no. I see people on social media making incredibly awful comments. They attribute bad motives to people they don’t even know. Facts don’t matter. The only thing the matters in some people’s heads is a unity of rage. If we can connect our emotion to others we believe the impact will be righteous just by itself. That is a lie.

Rage eventually mutates into tribalism. If a plurality of like-minded people shares a similar emotion the group validates that emotion as truth. Truth is God. Any emotion that conflicts with God isn’t truth. Be quick to hear. Learn what is going on. If you don’t understand why someone would think a certain way, ask yourself that question first. Always put yourselves in someone’s shoes. Do it constantly, preferable every hour of the day.

We need to be humble. If we humble ourselves before God rage would not be a natural reaction. When you receive the truth of God you would not be quick to emotional outburst of rage. You will inspect your social media page and make sure your comments reflect God. (In full disclosure I am not always good at this.) Let’s be carefully analytical about everything we hear. We should stay clear of things that facilitate a quick emotional reaction and turn ourselves to outlets that make us be more analytical. When we do we can make a great impact in our culture. Our world is starving for God and rage is only going to take away the nourishment we need.

This is a small blog post but this issue is starting to become the biggest problem in our culture.