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Anger

I just finished reading a set of blogs from some upper midwestern college students. Boy, were they angry. Rants about professors, friends, conservatives, God, the President.

I read pretty carefully and found it almost impossible to figure out what was making everybody so angry. I realized after a while that I wasn't going to find an answer in the words on the screen. In fact, as I read, I grew less and less convinced that their anger really had anything to do with the issues and people they were discussing.

They poked fun at Christian leaders. They adamantly attacked almost every conservative position. They demonized anyone who questioned their claims. They made wildly uneducated accusations. It was, in general, the stuff blogs promote: opinion without substance. At the bottom of it all, their posts were not about issues or people. They were about being angry.

The Anger Cycle

After reading these posts I felt myself getting angry. You know the cycle: Someone spouts his opinion and steps on the feet of someone else who, in turn, gets defensive and, by default, angry. This person says something in response and both of them wind up defensive and angry. All of this is normal; but is it productive or Christ-like? Wouldn't it be better if people just kept their opinions to themselves?

The more I study Scripture the less I think anger is a bad thing in and of itself. Scripture doesn't teach that we should avoid making others angry, and it doesn't teach that we shouldn't get angry ourselves. What troubles God is what we do in and with our anger.

Some of us feel it's easier to suppress it, so we keep it inside until we either get silently bitter toward everyone or we explode at innocents around us. Others feel like it's better to blow off steam and be done with it. Who cares who I dump on? I'm healthy because I'm not holding it inside! (Maybe, but pretty soon you'll find that there's no one around on which to unload.) Still others talk constantly about their "righteous indignation" (a euphemism for plain old anger). God says not to sin in our anger.

So, we want to be like God? What does that look like? Exodus 34:6 contains the first use of the word "anger" in the Bible. In this case, it is used as a description of God's nature: "And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.'"

God says this after the children of Israel have turned away from Him and Moses has had to come back up the mountain to get the second set of stone tablets that contain the Ten Commandments. Now, put that in the context of your life. Someone turns away from you, destroys the things you find most precious and then does something as offensive as stomp on your grave. Being "slow to anger" isn't what comes to my mind first. Abounding in love isn't at the top of the list, either.

Continue looking for instances of the word "anger" in Scripture and you'll wind up very convicted. The one that speaks directly to me is the one that says, "A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control" (Proverbs 29:11, NIV). There are times I hate reading those sections!

Standing In Line

Recently, I was in the self-checkout lane at a store. The woman in front of me had two items. She successfully scanned the first one but the second wouldn't read no matter which way she turned the UPC code. She looked over her shoulder to see if the clerk was coming to her rescue. The clerk was deep in conversation with another employee.

A very audible clearing of the throat didn't gain her attention. Finally, she put her fingers in her mouth and let go with a loud-enough-for-the-soccer-field whistle. Everyone froze and turned toward the noise. Now that she had the young lady's attention, the stymied customer said, "Look, you can talk on your own time. This thing won't work!"

Her frustration was understandable, yet she wasn't done. When the girl got over to her, she let loose. The woman berated her for her laziness, her lack of customer attention, and even commented on her attire. Then I saw it happen. The blood began to rise in the clerk's neck and an explosion erupted that would put a sailor to shame

Of course, that put everybody's attention back on the customer. How would she respond? Remember, she had two items and the second one hadn't been scanned. Her problem hadn't been solved, but neither she nor the clerk cared about that at this point. This was personal! (I might note that the other three self-check lanes were clear but I wasn't moving to them for anything. I wanted to know where this was going.)

The customer stood her ground, threw the two items down on the floor, swore at the girl and walked out of the store. The clerk turned on her heels and walked away. The crowd dispersed and returned to their normal activity. I knelt down and picked up the items. One was a birthday card with a nice sentiment about living it up on your birthday. The other was a book. It was about how we can be Jesus to a hurting world. I'm not kidding!

Roots of Anger

As this situation illustrates, our anger can be cruelly misdirected and brutally overdone. Author Gary Smalley once said that anger comes from frustration, and frustration comes from either unfulfilled or unexpressed expectations.

What boggles my mind is that we so easily get entangled in the sin that comes from anger. If we could just to stop and think about where anger comes from we might be less likely to explode at the next trivial irritation that comes along. Venting might be the world's way of dealing with anger in a "healthy" way, but too often there are casualties in that kind of skirmish.

C O F F E E  S H O P

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Seeing red? How do we handle anger in a way that glorifies God?

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Think about that the next time you vent your opinion or let loose on an unsuspecting store clerk. Your blogs might not be as fun to read, but they might be a whole lot more civil!