My alarm clock this morning was a gentle breeze accompanied by the nature’s music of the birds singing right outside my window. It was just one of those mornings where you say, “Yeah, life is good!” The weather is beautiful, I had the day planned out and today was my son’s first rounds of SAT’s.

We jumped in the car and headed over to Dunkin’ Donuts to fuel up on a couple iced teas and breakfast sandwiches before heading over to the school. We arrived a few minutes early so my son could get settled. I waited a bit just to make sure and off I went to get an oil change.

About 30 minutes went by and my phone rang…it was my son and he was pretty upset. After I calmed him down, I learned that he was not allowed to take the test because his SAT pass had a picture of him with a hat on. My initial response was, “WHAT?!?!?”

I headed back to the school to deal with this situation and my anger increased with every mile I drove. I was really angry and when I arrived into the parking lot I reached DEFCON 1 on the angry scale. I was ready to walk in there and give them a piece of my mind.

Ready! Fire! Aim!

“In your anger do not sin” Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.. -Ephesians 4:26, 27

But for God…

Before I opened my car door I get this nudge from Him about the condition of my heart in this moment. I paused, bowed my head and started to talk to Him about this situation and His peace started to scatter my anger. I asked Him for wisdom, discernment and to change the condition of my heart before I walked in.
Sure there is such a thing a righteous anger, but let’s face it…most of our anger isn’t righteous. Most of our anger is self-righteous and a direct barometer of the condition of our heart.

Meeting my son at the entrance, we proceeded into the school. My son did not want to go back in, but I was in a much better place and simply wanted to get to the bottom of this.

After a few minutes we found the person responsible for this decision and approached him to understand what happened. Because I approached him with a level head and explained the situation, he had a change of heart and decided to let my son take the test. He even went on to say how much he appreciated that I didn’t get up in his grill and tear his head off.

Our speech must always contain grace. Unless people put away anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech from their mouth, they cannot represent God’s essential goodness. -Colossians 3:8

I don’t know about you, but I am learning that the outcome is so much better when we go to God first with our situation. Most of the time when we take control, “ready, fire, aim” the situation escalates and we run to God to bail us out.

Sound familiar?

When we bring our situation to God first, we make way for Him to work on our behalf to orchestrate the best outcome. When we give it God first, He enables us to hit the mark. In this case, having my son take his SAT’s.

I don’t always get this right and neither do you, but I’m learning that it’s so much easier to hit the mark when we pause and see the situation from God’s perspective. Ready. Aim. Fire!

Is your anger in check?

Do you just charge right in to situations like a hot head?