My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
James 1:19-21 (NIV)
Biblegateway.com returns 270 verses from a keyword search of “anger” in the New International Version. The first 257 of those verses are from the Old Testament, and the majority of those verses refer to God’s anger, not men’s.
Why is it, then, that we are cautioned by James to be “slow to become angry?” If God so often burns with anger towards his people, why aren’t we allowed to do the same? Why are Christians shamed by their fellow believers when they express anger towards those that have wronged them, and towards God when his promises are not kept?
An e-friend of mine recently lost her mother after a four-year-long battle with Alzheimer’s. At the end of her mother’s life, it was my friend who was fighting; her mother’s fight was completely spent. My friend is still fighting, wrestling with the complexities of grief and the parts of her life that were on hold while her mother convalesced. She’s fighting with herself, too, trying to make sense of her feelings, beating the most uncomfortable ones into submission. She’s angry, and that’s understandable, but she’s resistant to expressing her anger except in contexts and with people that make her feel safe. Why? Because anger is not pretty. It is not demure or politically correct. Sometimes it’s fearsome in its violence. Sometimes it’s laughable in its impropriety. And although it’s an emotion that every single person feels at times, often for legitimate reasons, it’s an emotion that’s shushed and shamed. Because anger makes people uneasy, we hide it and deny it for fear of driving others away. And that shame, that fear? Just makes us ANGRIER.
My ex-husband and I fought very well (something one wouldn’t gather from the fact that we are divorced). We rarely raised our voices or took cheap shots at each other; we discussed our differences rationally. I can remember only two instances where I “lost my shit” with him, and he remembers them clearly, too. In one instance, I stood up and began kicking everything around me, babbling incoherently. (It’s a good thing I was wearing steel-toed boots at the time.) In the other, I picked up the closest object - my Bible - so I could throw it for emphasis. In the back of my mind, I remembered that the object I held was an expensive gift from my mother, so I didn’t want to ruin it, but goddamn I was pissed. So I waved it around with what my ex describes as a Jack-Nicholson-type-crazy look in my eyes. We still laugh about that; he says he was certain I was going to beat him with the word of God. I finally just put the book down because I didn’t want to damage it. And because I felt silly.
But why did I feel silly? Was my anger unjustified? No, it wasn’t. My ex admitted, when all was said and done, that his actions/words had been unacceptable, and after we made up, he didn’t do or say those things ever again. Still, for many years, when I recalled those two events, I felt sheepish. Why had I lost control? Sane, rational people don’t do that, do they?
Yes. Yes, they do. Sometimes people wrong us, and sometimes they wrong us in epic ways. Sometimes life wrongs us, and there is no one of blame except God himself. And the hugeness of the wrong, the sheer unfairness of life, pisses us off. We think, “Good grief! I’m a good person, I pay my taxes, I feed my cats, I wash behind my ears, and what the hell do I get for my effort? I get stabbed in the back! I get screwed over! I get the rug ripped out from underneath me! This sucks! And I’m mad!”
God “lost his shit” sometimes, too. Throughout the Old Testament there are stories of him exclaiming, “Good grief! I treat you people well! I give you food and shelter and protection and what do I get in return? Dissed for a golden calf! What do you people WANT from me?” How do we reconcile what we know of God with the instruction of James to rid ourselves of moral filth - including anger?
My theory is that unrighteous anger is “anger gone wrong.” When we don’t deal with the big wrongs of life, when we repress our feelings about true injustices, we become petty and irritable. I’ve noticed that my road rage goes off the charts when I’ve been consistently avoiding the real issues in my life. I specifically remember a time when I felt that a close friend was regularly disregarding my feelings. In the middle of that nasty business, I became blind with anger one day and let loose a string of obscene words and gestures when another car tried to pull in front of me. That’s not righteous living - that’s downright embarrassing. After letting my friend know how I felt, I began experiencing peace again and graciously letting go of minor driving annoyances. Since then, how I react to people in traffic has become my barometer for repressed anger. When I become a she-bitch on wheels, I know there’s something I need to deal with.
Let’s follow God’s example, then, and be honest about our feelings, in appropriate ways. Let’s be honest about who has made us mad, and confront the situation candidly. (Not abusively, mind you - but that’s a topic for another post.) If we cannot discuss our issues with the person that has wronged us, or when the issue is larger than just one person, we’ll need to find a safe space to hash out our feelings, as the friend I mentioned at the beginning of this post has done. When you’ve lost someone you love, there’s no one to point fingers at, but it’s likely there are people you can trust to listen to you rant about the injustice of it. Own that anger, don’t be ashamed of it. And for goodness’ sake, don’t try to hide it, because it will resurface, and make some unsuspecting - and undeserving - person its target.