Dealing With Your Anger

If you don't learn how to handle anger, you will constantly hurt others.

by David Powlison

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

What makes you angry? Are they small things, like traffic jams, lines at the grocery store, not being able to find a shoe, a waiter’s mistake, or a friend’s inattention?
Are they big things, like when someone betrays you? Experiences of injustice, meanness, violence, oppression, selfishness, or lying?
How do you deal with your anger? Do you explode? Does everyone around you know when and why you are angry? Or are you more subtle?
Do you get irritated and short with those around you? Do you gossip and complain about your spouse, children, coworkers, and friends? Or maybe you just turn your anger in on yourself and become depressed and bitter.
You might have noticed that you can’t avoid dealing with your anger. Anger is an inevitable response to living in a troubled world where things can and do go wrong all the time.
But if you don’t learn how to deal with your anger, you will constantly hurt others. You will poison your own heart. You will estrange yourself from God. God cares about what makes you angry, and God cares about how you express anger.

Common advice
Some counselors notice that people get tied up in knots when they hide or stuff their anger. They will tell you to deal with your anger by getting in touch with how you feel and then expressing it. “Get it off your chest. Say exactly what you think. Give ‘em a piece of your mind.”
Other counselors have noticed how destructive people become when they express anger. They will counsel you to control your anger. Psychotherapy, medication, exercise, and meditation are just some of the different ways they recommend for defusing your anger and calming yourself down.
So which is it, venting or calming?
Actually, God has a different way for you to deal with your anger. He knows well that stuffing your anger deep inside is destructive. And just learning tricks for keeping calm never discovers the purpose for which God designed anger. Anger needs to be acknowledged and expressed in a positive way, as a form of doing what is good and right.
At the same time, God knows well that venting your anger is destructive. Instead of expressing your anger in ways that hurt those around you, it is possible to express your anger in a way that actually redeems difficult situations and relationships.
How does this happen? It starts with understanding what anger is, where it comes from, and how a right relationship with God will actually change the way you view and express your anger.


 
What is anger?
Anger is your God-given capacity to respond to a wrong that you think is important. It always expresses two things:

• It identifies something in your world that matters to you.
• It proclaims that you believe that something is wrong.

This could be something as minor as being served a cold cup of coffee at a restaurant. Or it could be something as major as your spouse running off with your best friend.
God also gets angry at things that are wrong in this world. Your capacity to be angry is an expression of being made in His image. So when you get angry, you are not necessarily wrong. But often anger does go wrong.
Getting angry about things that don’t matter
God’s anger is always holy and pure because what He says is wrong is wrong, and what He says matters, does matter. God is rightly displeased when people are harmed and hurt by others. Romans 13:10 (ESV) tells us, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor” while Romans 12:17 says, “Repay no one evil for evil.” Two wrongs never make a right, and our anger often simply doubles the wrong. But God’s anger makes right what is wrong (Romans 12:19).
One difference between our anger and God’s anger is that, since we aren’t always holy and pure, we often get angry at things that aren’t true wrongs … or at things that don’t really matter to anyone but us. If you throw a tantrum when you are served cold food in a restaurant, or curse when you are stuck in traffic, you should recognize that these are not things that really matter in God’s world.
God explains to us in the Bible why we get angry at things that don’t really matter to anyone but us. The apostle Paul uses the phrase “desire of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16) to describe where our wrong anger comes from. You and I get angry because of what we desire (what we expect, want, and believe we need) to happen in a certain situation or relationship.
Think about the last time you got angry. Underneath your feelings, words, and actions is something you wanted but didn’t get. Respect, affirmation, power, convenience, cooperation, help, money, comfort, intimacy, peace, pleasure, identity, safety … what is it that you want? And how do you respond when you don’t get it? Anger going wrong loudly tells the world, “I want my way! My will be done!”