Have you been keeping up with the news? Our country is a mess right now. We have a porous southern border with no-telling-who coming across with very few if any expectations upon them while our government puts crushing burdens on the backs of its own law-abiding citizens. Supply chains are massively disrupted because of ludicrous policies concerning COVID. Healthcare workers, pilots, and others are walking off the job because they, for a variety of reasons, refuse to submit to the vaccine mandates that are being implemented fascistically. Our recent military debacle in Afghanistan caused unnecessary casualties. The Federal Reserve is printing billions of federal reserve notes–paper money–each month, infusing it into the economy, creating inflation, and making citizens poorer. All of this is recent and is on top of the atrocities of abortion, the celebration of deviant sexual lifestyles, and all of the tolerated lawlessness of the riots in 2020. All the while we are told by our government and many in the media not to believe what we are seeing, hearing, and experiencing. It truly is the stuff of dystopian novels.
Everything from the lawlessness to the newspeak that goes on is maddening. With the inundation of news 24/7/365 and connections on social media constantly pushing the latest absurdities through our feeds, it is tempting to be caught up in a frenzy of emotions all of the time, seething about everything going on.
We are angry. In many cases, our anger is justified. When we see wickedness rampant and the righteous being trampled, we ought to be angry. God is angry with the wicked every day (Ps 7.7). We are to join him in his anger and sin not (Ps 4.4; cf. also Eph 4.26). There is an anger that is righteous. There are times, in fact, that if you are not angry you are in sin. If you can be apathetic toward the atrocities of abortion or Christians being slaughtered at the hands of Muslims, Communists, and others, then there is something wrong with you. There is a righteous anger.
However, for anger to be righteous, it must have not only the right cause, but it must also have the right expression. If you do the wrong thing for the right reason, it is wrong.
One sinful expression of anger is fretting. Solomon commands his son, “Fret not yourself because of evildoers, and be not envious of the wicked, for the evil man has no future; the lamp of the wicked will be put out.” (24.19-20). The word translated fret is graphic. It images this burning, smoldering fire inside. Fretting is an internal fury, a seething anger that never rests. Fretting is anger that has sinfully run amok, remaining agitated all the time, betraying a lack of trust in God that brings rest because you know that God will make all things right.
In Psalm 37.8, Solomon’s father, David says, “Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil;” that is, it will encourage you to do things you ought not. You are wondering, “Why isn’t someone DOING something now? Why can’t we fix this NOW? Why can’t the wicked be consumed NOW?” Ultimately, this anger is directed toward God. It is impatience with him and his timing.
If you fret like this all of the time, you are cultivating impatience as well as killing yourself. You can’t live under this emotional strain all the time. Something will have to give. You will either eat yourself alive with bitterness and resentment, or you will do something rash. You must take care to guard against fretting. James reminds us that the wrath of man does not bring about the righteousness of God (Jms 1.19-20). Fretting anger may make you feel laser-focused and able to get things done, but this type of anger doesn’t bring about God’s promises of peace. Fretting makes you impatient and prone to grasp at resolutions in ways that make the problem worse.
We see someone’s life headed in the wrong direction. We’ve offered to help, but they have refused. But we care so much. We become fretful, agitated at the whole situation. We are fixers, and fixers fix. So, we become busybodies, trying to fix everything and everyone. We fret because people aren’t doing right.
The care itself may be legitimate, but fretting and its actions are not. Our anger stirs up impatience that leads us, as Proverbs says, to meddle in an affair that is not ours, grabbing the proverbial passing dog by the ears (Pr 26.17). We are going to make everything right because we can’t stand to see things the way that they are. We wind up making a bigger mess of the situation by being an impatient busybody. Paul addresses busybodies such as this with the Thessalonians (2Thess 3.11) and instructs Timothy to address them (1Tm 5.13). Your over-caring about situations, inserting yourself where you have not been invited or is not in the realm of your authority, is being a busybody.
This impatience is stirred up by your fretting. No matter how you self-justify, you are fretting and, because of it, you are grasping. Yes, those people are wicked. No, we can’t do much about it. As you have a proper opportunity, give counsel and take proper actions. But when you can’t do anything, don’t fret and leave the end to God. Your fretting doesn’t work righteousness.
The world is a mess both near us and far away from us. We can’t fix everything or everyone. Do all that God has given you the responsibility to do, leave the results to him, rest, and fret not.
