by Saint Fang

Created on: May 02, 2010   Last Updated: May 11, 2010

My mother once told me, some time after my parent's divorce, that she just couldn't stay angry with my father. When I asked her why, she just told me, "It's too much work to be angry. It's wearing me out."

When one thinks of a person being angry with another, they may think of how hurt the person who is receiving the anger must feel, but very rarely do they think of how the angry person's feelings are affecting that individual. Anger is one of the many sins that is damaging not only to the person whom the anger is directed at, but to the person feeling it as well, though they may not know it.

The temptation to sin has been a great one, even from the very beginning. Why is it so tempting to do something that we have been told, time and again, is wrong? Some would say that sin is 'easier' than doing the right thing, and sometimes, such as in cases of stealing, it seems so, until the thief gets caught, of course. Very rarely have I seen sin turn out to truly be the easy way out.

One observation I've made as a student in the field of Early Childhood Education is that, when you tell a child not to do something, there is always at least one child who has to go and do it. Some call that the child testing his or her boundaries. Maybe humans just have a natural inclination to 'test our boundaries'. When we're told something is 'wrong' we want to know why. We want to know what the consequences will really be.

But, at some point, we have to learn to trust that the boundaries will always be there, whether we test them or not. We have to learn the difference between right and wrong. We have to counter human inclination with the commandment of God.

Unfortunately, all of us, at some point in our lives, end up learning the consequences of sin the hard way. Were you one of those children who whacked your little brother around and ended up not being able to have friends over for a week? Or maybe you were the student who cheated on the history test and ended up with a nice, long detention. Maybe you were even the desperate individual who spent a night in a jail cell after being caught taking more than your money's worth at the local supermarket. These little trials and tribulations are the way we first learn about sin and its consequences. And, as we get older, the consequences tend to only get worse.

We soon discover, as our experience with sin grows, that it's not just the consequences that people put upon us for our sins, such as detentions, groundings, and jail sentences

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