“Anger is always an attack on the brother’s life, for it refuses to let him live and aims at his destruction. Jesus will not accept the common distinction between righteous indignation and unjustifiable anger. The disciple must be entirely innocent of anger, because anger is an offence against both God and his neighbour. Every idle word which we think so little of betrays our lack of respect for our neighbour, and shows that we place ourselves on a pinnacle above him and value our own lives higher than his. The angry word is a blow struck at our brother, a stab at his heart:it seeks to hit, to hurt and to destroy…With our hearts burning with hatred, we seek to annihilate his moral and material existence. We are passing judgement on him, and that is murder. And the murderer will himself be judged…
When we come before God with hearts full of contempt and unreconciled with our neighbours, we are, both individually and as a congregation, worshiping an idol. So long as we refuse to love and serve our brother and make him an object of contempt and let him harbour a grudge against me or the congregation, our worship and sacrifice will be unacceptable to God. Not just the fact that I am angry, but the fact that there is somebody who has been hurt, damaged and disgraced by me, who ‘has a cause against me,’ erects a barrier between me and God…
There is therefore only one way of following Jesus and of worshiping God, and that is to be reconciled with our brethren. If we come to hear the Word of God and receive the sacrament without first being reconciled with our neighbours, we shall come to our own damnation…This is a hard way, but it is the way Jesus requires if we are to follow him. It is a way which brings much personal humiliation and insult, but it is indeed the way to him, our crucified Brother, and therefore a way of grace abounding.” -Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer
sidenotes;
like a gracious knife to the festering, cancerous anger encasing my heart
because the sad and awful thing is that i can conjure the faces of those i have sinned against in my heart. it's not like i am ignorant about it. god have mercy. give me the boldness to do what i have to do now.
also i am stress eating and stress sleeping and it is bad
