“Anger, he smiles, towering in shiny metallic purple armor, Queen Jealousy, Envy waits beside him. Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground. Blue are the life-giving waters taken for granted. They quietly understand. Once happy turquoise armies lay opposite ready but wonder why the fight is on.” Bold as Love: Jimi Hendrix
Anger is a natural human response – part of the emotional array that we inherit from our Heavenly Template. Yes, God gets angry too, but His righteous anger is triggered only by injustice; and that’s the only way that He accepts angry behavior from His children:
For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime. Ps. 30:5 NASB
…for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm. Joel 2:13 NKJV
But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them. Yes, many a time He turned His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath… Ps. 78.38 NKJV
If we follow our Father in heaven’s example then, we see that our anger is to be slow-growing, short-lived and filled with compassion and forgiveness.
Yet, as we have seen, since the fall of Adam and Eve, we have an ungodly component in our soul and flesh that desires to follow the worldly examples. Worldly anger, like its close cousins: pride, jealousy and envy, are all forms of fear:
Envy is the fear of being ‘less than,’ believing others to be better than you.
Jealousy is similar to envy, both being born out of a lust for something someone else has, while holding them in disdain for their apparent good fortune.
Exercising pride is where you lift yourself above another, effectively oppressing them.
Anger is the motherlode of all fears – the fear of life itself.
Anger is an unsuccessful strategy of oppression, a defense mechanism against the pain that they are feeling from their life experience, because they refuse to grab ahold of life by the rudder and take responsibility for their consequences. In addition, they are not inviting God to help them in the parts of their lives that they cannot control.
It is an emotional offensive play that is in reality a defense tactic to intimidate someone, whom they feel is trying to invalidate their own beliefs. These opinions are always rooted in some interpretation (meaning) that they’ve attached to some event in their past.
Anger is a form of ‘closing down,’ by ‘striking out.’ It creates barriers to communication and relationship. Worse, it’s addictive and feeds upon itself.
The roots of anger include 1) not liking something, i.e. your preferences manifesting, 2) wanting life to be different than it is, but being paralyzed by a fear of change, 3) seeing others as ‘the enemy’ for not sharing your preferences, 4) defending yourself against potential rejection, afraid the past will repeat itself, 5) fearing being ‘found out’ for some past mistake, or having your false persona being exposed, and finally 6) feeling that someone is trying to control you – especially if you see yourself as a ‘victim.’
There is nothing good about unrighteous anger:
Cease from anger and forsake wrath; do not fret; it leads only to evildoing. Ps. 37:8 NASB
For anger slays the foolish man, and jealousy kills the simple. Job 5:2 NASB
Our tirades drive everyone away, even those we want to hold close, leaving us with more shame and guilt and ultimately, loneliness. Worse, it does nothing to relieve our pain.
The danger that indulging in anger brings, is the elevation to violence that you direct towards others and yourself. How can you expect to embrace happiness?
Anger makes you think that you are powerful; but it eviscerates your health – leading to anxiety, high blood pressure, stroke and cancer.
We must put on the mindset of the Godhead:
BE ANGRY [at sin – at immorality, at injustice, at ungodly behavior], YET DO NOT SIN; do not let your anger [cause you shame, nor allow it to] last until the sun goes down. And do not give the devil the opportunity [to lead you into sin by holding a grudge, or nurturing anger, or harboring resentment, or cultivating bitterness]. Eph. 4:26, 27. AMP
A gentle answer turns away wrath… Pr. 15:1 NASB
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Eph. 4:31, 31. ESV
Good sense and discretion make a man slow to anger, and it is his honor and glory to overlook a transgression or an offense [without seeking revenge and harboring resentment]. Pr. 19:11 AMP
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control… Gal. 5:22, 23. NASB
The long and short of it is, that if we want to root anger out of our lives, we must practice living our lives in the opposite way, i.e. a life of peace:
If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Rm. 12:18 ESV
…live in peace and the God of love and peace will be with you. 2 Cor. 13:11 NKJV
Ultimately, we can choose anger and die, or, choose peace and live:
“God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.” Mt. 5:9 NLT
Goodnight and God bless.