Anger Mismanagement

I begin this post with a lyrical question (and with apologies to the Beatles), All the angry people, where do they all come from? All the angry people, where do they all belong?

After watching the assault on the U.S. Capitol by so called “Trump Supporters” and the violent riots in Seattle, Portland and Minneapolis this past summer, as well as the multiple “road rage” incidents reported on the news; I’ve concluded that anger and violence in this nation are at epidemic levels.

Human history is filled with episodes of men lashing out against their fellow men with angry words and violent actions, everything from domestic violence to world wars.  However, it seems that we are becoming increasingly desensitized to violent expressions of anger, including our own. Angry, divisive, even threatening interactions take place within the anonymity of internet communications, and “anger management” has become an increasingly necessary form of therapy.

We even go so far as to entertain ourselves with various forms of violence, everything from movies to video games to WWE, UFC and MMA events (Google them), where we vicariously can express our anger within those mediums.

We are a nation, a world of angry, hurting, grieving people, cut off from the joyful life with God for which we were created. Thus, we look to the government, to science, to education to promote human flourishing and individual happiness.  Inevitably they fail, and we become increasingly angry and frustrated with both their failures and our own.

According to the Bible, we are in such a condition because of our innate hatred and hostility toward God (Romans 8:5-7), disdaining the purpose for which we were created (Isaiah 43:7), rejecting His rule and authority over our lives (1 Samuel 8:7).

Mankind’s hostility toward God, goes back to the Garden of Eden wherein we, like the devil (Isaiah 14:12-14), hate the fact that God has the freedom and ability to to do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, however He wants, accountable to no one, while we must live dependent upon and accountable to Him.

We see the sinful, violent anger of man progressing early in human history to where God brings judgement on the whole world as a result  (Genesis 6:9-13).

Notice, I used the word “sinful” to describe the type of anger God judges.  I do so because anger in itself is not inherently sinful, much like sexual intimacy is not sinful as long as it takes place within a marriage between a man and a woman.

Anger is an emotion, an internal feeling that is actually an aspect of the image of God in us. God’s anger is always just and expressed consistent with His Holy and righteous nature.  We have examples of this throughout the Bible that I will look at in a future post.

However, because the image of God in us has been corrupted by sin, anger will almost always be experienced and expressed in sinful ways that produce other sinful emotions such as hatred, malice, partiality, enmity, bitterness and strife.  Sinful anger, unchecked, unrepented of, will always have a destructive outcome, manifested in broken relationships, physical assaults, abused spouses/children/pets, damaged property or loss of vocation at minimum.

Jesus in Matthew 5:21-26 tells us that sinful anger is the seed of all murder, and deserving of Hell, as it is a characteristic of the devil (John 8:42-44).

We have in the Bible examples of sinful anger, its expression and its consequences.  The most blatant is the jealous anger of Cain that leads to the murder of His brother Abel (Genesis 4:4-8).  We also see anger in Ahab’s pouting over his inability to persuade Naboth to sell him his vineyard, which ultimately results in Jezebel having Naboth murdered (1 Kings 21:1-16), and in Jonah’s suicidal ideation in response to God’s granting repentance to the evil city of Nineveh (Jonah 4:1-9).  In the New Testament, in Acts 7:51-60, we see an angry mob murdering Stephen for convicting them of their participation in the betrayal and murder of Jesus (which was also a result of the threatening’s of an angry mob Mark 15:6-15).

We usually attribute our sinful expression of anger to something or someone outside of ourselves; the traffic, the government, an uncooperative spouse, disobedient children, workplace pressures, even God; when in fact the Bible tells us that those are circumstance that provide an excuse (in our minds) for the anger that is existing in our evil hearts to come out (Jeremiah 17:9, Mark 7:21).

In James 4, we have revealed to us the ultimate motivation behind all sinful anger, namely the desire to please ourselves rather than God, wherein we pridefully see self as the center of the universe rather than God.  And thus, when the universe and those in the universe do not cater to our will and wishes, our standards and expectations, we become angry.    We, particularly those who are prone to chronic anger, see anger as a means of controlling those in our environment to get what we want through implied or actual threats and intimidation.

Yet the Bible all the way back in Genesis 4:6-7 tells us that we are responsible to master our sinful anger, a mastery that can and will come only through faith in and obedience to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  I will address this more thoroughly in my next post.

Grace and Peace ×