My angry car

I was meeting with a pastor/mentor some years ago (more than 20) and we were talking about conflict resolution.  His assertion in the conversation was that Christians should not be angry.  I am still angry when I remember it.  It is a ridiculous thing to construct any phrase which includes "should not" followed by any emotion.  "You should not be happy", or "you should not be sad" are statements we would be LESS likely to say but which are essentially the same.  They seek to prohibit the experience of emotion.  The only way to accomplish this would be to destroy one's feeling being entirely.  Not a good idea.

Anger we seek to prohibit most particularly.  We are fine with people being happy (or most folks are) and can live with people being sad (but sometimes not, as we rush to comfort them with kleenex in hopes the tears will stop for all our sakes), but we cannot tolerate anger.  We will redefine it as some nicer word.  "Frustration" is a popular choice.

But what do the Scriptures say about anger?  Interestingly enough there is no prohibition of the emotion in the Bible.  God is described as angry and Jesus appears to have been, ahem, "frustrated" when he chased the money changers out of the temple.  Indeed, the wisdom of the Bible suggests a couple of things.  First that "in your anger do not sin." (Ephesians 4:26)  It is not the emotion, but what we do with it that causes the problem.  Second, it is also suggested that we not let the sun go down on our anger. (also Ephesians 4:26)  This is sage advice, because anger stored becomes wrath and bitterness.

I am not saying that anger cannot be dangerous.  Of course it can.  As can unrelenting sadness.  James in his letter tells us we should be slow to become angry as our anger does not bring about God's righteousness. (James 1:20) I'm down with that.  SLOW to anger - not anger-free.  Habits of anger may be rooted in an unholy sense of entitlement or pride and indeed should not be indulged.  (Note here the should is attached to what we do with the anger not the felling itself.)

Anger is one of the emotions with which God has gifted us.  And I am not using the word "gifted" sarcastically.  It is a gift for two reasons (and here I get to the uses of anger).  First, when we feel angry it tells us that some boundary we have has been crossed or that some expectation we had was not met.  Now here is where it is useful.  When I feel angry, I ask myself, "What boundary has been crossed?  What expectation has gone unmet?"  Once I have identified that I am wiser, but then can ask a supplemental question, "Was it a reasonable boundary or expectation?"  If the answer to the second question is "yes" my response to the anger will be different than if my answer is "no."

Second, there is a lot of energy in anger.  I was once very angry with some people in my church - shocking, I know.  I went out into the driveway and washed and waxed my car within an inch of its life.  It looked beautiful!  A good use of the energy.  Sometimes the energy in anger will actually move us to take action on something that has been long overdue.  Feeling overwhelmed (another anger euphemism) at expectations placed on me and my team at work, I was spurred to have a very fruitful conversation with my boss about what could be done.

Felling ticked today?  Ask yourself what boundary has been crossed and whether it is a reasonable one.  In your anger do not sin.  It might be a good day to clean your car.