Chapter Fifteen: Anger
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Anger
Robert Jones, in his book Uprooting Anger, wrote, “Anger is a universal problem, prevalent in every culture, experienced by every generation. No one is isolated from its presence or immune from its poison. It permeates each person and spoils our most intimate relationships. Anger is a given part of our fallen human fabric.” And then Jones added, “Sadly this is true even in our Christian homes and churches.”1
I would add to Jones’ observation about our Christian homes and churches that our anger is often directed toward those we should love most: our spouse, children, parents, or siblings in our human families, and those who are our true brothers and sisters in Christ in our church families. I once knew a fellow believer who was the epitome of graciousness to other people but was continually angry with his wife and children. Fortunately, after years of this, God finally convicted him and helped him deal with his anger.
What is anger? Many of us might say, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it, especially if it’s directed toward me.” My dictionary defines anger simply as a strong feeling of displeasure, and usually of antagonism. I would add that it’s often accompanied by sinful emotions, words, and actions hurtful to those who are the objects of our anger.
Anger is a huge and complex issue, and dealing with it extensively is beyond the purpose of this book. In keeping with my objective to help us confront the sins we tolerate in our lives, I am going to focus on that aspect of anger that we unconsciously treat as “acceptable” sin. In order to do that, I need to right away deal with the issue of righteous anger.
Some people justify their anger as righteous anger. They feel they have a right to be angry, given a certain situation. How, then, can I know if my anger is righteous anger? First, righteous anger arises from an accurate perception of true evil — that is, as a violation of God’s moral law. It focuses on God and His will, not on me and my will. Second, righteous anger is always self-controlled. It never causes one to lose his temper or retaliate in some vengeful way.2
Though the Bible does give some examples of righteous anger, such as Jesus’ cleansing of the temple, they are few. The main focus of the Bible’s teaching on anger deals with our sinful anger, our sinful reactions to other people’s actions or words. The fact that we may be reacting to another person’s real sin does not necessarily make our anger righteous. We are likely more concerned with the negative impact of the sinful actions on us than we are that it is a violation of God’s law. Or we may even use the fact that it is a violation of God’s law to justify our own sinful angry response.
Another topic of anger that is also beyond the purpose of this book is that of the person who is continually angry, or the person whose anger causes him or her to be verbally or physically abusive. These people need good biblical and pastoral counseling. So in this chapter, I want to keep us focused on what we might call ordinary anger that we sort of accept as part of our lives but that is actually sinful in the sight of God.
In facing up to our anger, we need to realize that no one else causes us to be angry. Someone else’s words or actions may become the occasion of our anger, but the cause lies deep within us — usually our pride, or selfishness, or desire to control. I agreed to do something for a friend, and then I forgot. When my failure came to light, he became quite angry with me. Why did he become so visibly upset? It was because my failure had made him look bad in front of some of his friends. This is not to excuse my forgetfulness and the real fact that I had put him in an awkward situation. But the cause of his anger was not my failure but his pride.
We may become angry because someone has mistreated us in some way. A person gossips about us, and when we hear about it, we get angry. Why? It’s likely because our reputation or our character has been questioned. Again the cause is our pride.
We get angry because we don’t get our way. We frequently see this in children, but it is just as true of us who are adults. Often in a marriage, either the husband or wife will have the stronger personality and will want to call the shots in the home, even at the expense of the other’s desires or good judgment. When that person doesn’t easily get his or her way, he or she tends to become angry.3 Sometimes a similar situation occurs in a local church or even a parachurch ministry. A strong and often opinionated person again wants to exercise control and gets angry when others oppose him. In all of these instances, the cause of the anger is selfishness. “I want it my way.”
We get angry as a response to someone else’s anger. A husband comes home expecting dinner to be on the table. When it’s not, he becomes angry and verbalizes his anger in hot and hurtful words. The wife gets angry in return, but she may not verbalize her anger. Instead she seethes inwardly with resentment. Her anger is just as sinful as her husband’s. A man is chewed out by his boss, possibly in front of fellow employees. He can’t retaliate in kind, but he, like the unfortunate wife, will also seethe with resentment.
These hypothetical situations are not intended to justify the actions of the husband or the boss. Clearly they are sinful. But we can choose how we will respond to the sinful actions of others toward us. Consider Peter’s words to slaves in the first-century churches, who often served under cruel and unjust masters. According to much present-day thinking they would be justified in their anger, but here are Peter’s words to them:
Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. (1 Peter 2:18-20)
Peter’s instructions to slaves are a specific application of a broader scriptural principle: We are to respond to any unjust treatment as “mindful of God.” To be mindful of God means to think of God’s will and God’s glory. How would God have me respond in this situation? How can I best glorify God by my response? Do I believe that this difficult situation or this unjust treatment is under the sovereign control of God and that in His infinite wisdom and goodness He is using these difficult circumstances to conform me more to the likeness of Christ? (see Romans 8:28; Hebrews 12:4-11).
I am realistic enough to know that in the emotional heat of a tense situation, we are not going to go through a checklist of questions such as are in the preceding paragraph. But we can and should develop the habit of thinking this way. Oftentimes our immediate response to an unjust action of someone else will be sinful anger. This is certainly true of me. But in the after moments of a difficult episode, we can choose to continue to hold on to our anger, or we can reflect on such questions as I have given and allow the Holy Spirit to dissolve our anger.
I’ve no doubt there are myriad other circumstances or actions of other people that tempt us to be angry. But they can never cause us to be angry. The cause always lies within our hearts, usually as a result of our pride or selfishness.
There are probably exceptions to this that prove the rule, but apart from those, it is safe to say that all of us get angry from time to time. The issue is how we handle it. Some people tend to externalize their anger in strong, usually hurtful language. Others will externalize it in more subtle ways, such as belittling or making sarcastic comments to or about the person who is the object of their anger. And then there is the third group, who tend to internalize their anger in the form of resentment. All of these expressions of anger are sin.
So how should we handle our anger in a God-honoring way? First, we have to recognize and acknowledge our anger and the sinfulness of it. We cannot deal with anger until we acknowledge its presence. Then we need to ask ourselves why we became angry. Was it because of our pride or selfishness or some idol of the heart we are protecting? If so, we need to repent not only of our anger but also of our pride, selfishness, and idolatry.
Having to some extent dealt with the expression of our anger through recognition and repentance, we need to change our attitude toward the person or persons whose words or actions triggered our anger. Here the words of Scripture from Paul’s pen should be our guide:
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32)
And again from Paul:
… bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Colossians 3:13)
If we have expressed our anger outwardly, we also need to seek the forgiveness of the person we have wounded by our anger.
Finally, we need to hand over to God the occasion of our anger. This is especially true when we find ourselves the objects of someone else’s anger or the objects of unjust treatment by a boss, an overbearing husband, or anyone who treats us unjustly or unfairly. To dissolve our sinful emotions, we must believe that God is absolutely sovereign in all the affairs of our lives (both the “good” and the “bad”) and that all the words and actions of other people that tempt us to anger are somehow included in His wise and good purposes to make us more like Jesus. We must realize that any given situation that tempts us to anger can drive us either to sinful anger or to Christ and His sanctifying power.
Earlier in this chapter, I acknowledged that the subject of anger is complex and that addressing it significantly is beyond the purpose of this book. But I hope I have helped us to realize that most of our anger truly is sinful and, though we may excuse it and tolerate it in our lives, it is not acceptable to God. Before leaving this subject there is one more facet of anger we need to consider. That is the subject of …
ANGER TOWARD GOD
I have encountered a number of Christians who are angry at God for some reason. Some of them think that God has let them down in some way; others feel that God is actually against them. I sit here now looking at a letter in which the writer says, “I have felt so many times that He has slapped me in the face when I was really depending on Him.” This person freely admitted to being angry at God, because she had concluded that God was actually against her.
What are we to say to people who are desperately hurting and feel that God has let them down or is even against them? Is it okay to be angry toward God? Most pop psychology would answer yes. “Just vent your feelings toward God.” I’ve even read the statement, “It’s okay to be angry at God. He’s a big boy. He can handle it.” In my judgment, that is sheer blasphemy.
Let me make a statement loud and clear. It is never okay to be angry at God. Anger is a moral judgment, and in the case of God, it accuses Him of wrongdoing. It accuses God of sinning against us by neglecting us or in some way treating us unfairly. It also is often a response to our thinking that God owes us a better deal in life than we are getting. As a result, we put God in the dock of our own courtroom. I think of a man who, as his mother was dying of cancer, said, “After all she’s done for God, this is the thanks she gets.” Never mind that Jesus suffered untold agony to pay for her sins so she would not spend eternity in hell, this man thought that God also owed her a better life on this earth.
I acknowledge that believers can and do have momentary flashes of anger at God. I have experienced this myself. But we should quickly recognize those occurrences as the sins that they are and repent of them.
How, then, can we deal with our temptation to be angry at God? Must we just “stuff” our feelings and live in some degree of alienation from God? No, that is not the biblical solution. The answer lies, first of all, as I have said before (see chapter 8), in a well-grounded trust in the sovereignty, wisdom, and love of God. Second, we should bring our confusion and perplexity to God in a humble, trusting way. We can pray somewhat in the following fashion:
God, I know that You love me, and I also know that Your ways are often beyond my understanding. I admit I am confused at this time because I do not see the evidence of Your love toward me. Help me, by the power of Your Spirit, to trust You and not give in to the temptation to be angry at You.4
Remember also that our God is a forgiving God. Even our anger toward Him, which I consider a grievous sin, was paid for by Christ in His death on the cross. So if you have anger in your heart toward God, I invite you — no, I urge you — to come to Him in repentance and experience the cleansing power of Christ’s blood, shed on the cross for you.
I believe that many Christians live in denial about their anger. They consciously experience the flare-up of negative thoughts and emotions toward someone who has displeased them, but they do not identify this as anger, especially as sinful anger. They focus on the other person’s wrongdoing and justify their own reaction. They do not see their sin. Consequently, their anger is “acceptable” to them. They sense no need to deal with it. I pray that God will be pleased to use this chapter to help all of us, whether our anger is occasional or frequent, recognize it as the sin that it is and take appropriate steps to deal with it.