Handle With Care

Inside every Post Office, the United States Postal Service has a list of restricted items.

Several common household items make the list, and can only be mailed if strict requirements are met.

To put it overly simply, the restricted items are on the list because they just don’t travel well.

Changes in pressure, altitude, and temperature could cause the fragile contents to explode, ignite, or leak damaging chemicals. There could be a dramatic scene with flames and alarms. Or there might only be a silent eroding. Either way, these restricted items pose too great a risk.

Anger is one of those things on our Christian journey that just doesn’t travel well. It may begin as a common response to an offense or wound. But travel conditions on this journey can change rapidly. Circumstances turn upside down, pressure intensifies, and emotions escalate. What began as a momentary emotion can become something much more destructive if we carry it with us.

The Sixth Commandment forbids murder, or the unauthorized taking of life that dishonors the Giver of that life.  It condemns the “explosion”. But those whose anger has never erupted in such violence are not innocent. Jesus exposes the root problem, and reveals the “restricted item” itself: unresolved anger.

Even if the explosion never happens. There may not be blaring sirens and news stories. But if anger becomes resentment, and resentment becomes bitterness, then the damage is still done. Relationships erode. Reputations are contaminated. And the original package that held the hazard? Destroyed from the inside out.

Anger will find its way into our hands during our journey. The opportunities for it to arise are abundant. But it’s just too great a risk to carry. If only we could see anger labeled as other hazardous materials are: “Handle With Care”. Then we might remember that there is only One who knows how to deal with what can easily destroy us. And we can take it out of our hands, and put it in His.