Rising Above the Rage: How to Overcome Anger

Scriptures: Ephesians 4:26-27, James 1:19-20

Anyone who grew up in the southern United States is familiar with the ubiquitous vine, kudzu, otherwise known as “the vine that ate the south.” With the best of intentions, it was brought to the US from Japan as a means of preventing soil erosion. While it did perform that necessary function, it got out of control. It managed to devour everything and anything in its path. In the right conditions, kudzu can grow up to one foot per day! If left untended, what begins as a single, tiny pod can eventually swallow hundreds of acres. Similarly, if left untended, anger can grow completely out of control, impacting every area of our lives and potentially destroying everything in its path. In this devotional series, we will investigate anger. What it is, where it comes from, and then discuss some practical steps for dealing with it. 

It’s important to understand that anger is a normal human emotion. In and of itself, anger is no more sinful than sadness, happiness, or fear. Paul makes this clear when he tells us not to sin when we are angry. Paul understood anger is a normal and even unavoidable human emotion. A case could be made that sometimes anger is necessary. For example, anger can compel one to address matters of injustice or provide necessary motivation to protect the weak. The scourge of human trafficking can elicit deep feelings of anger that compel one to act on behalf of the victims. These feelings are often described as righteous anger. Perhaps the clearest Scriptural example of righteous anger is when Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple with a whip and overturned their tables. 

While righteous anger certainly has its place, my observation is that those expressions are few and far between. More often than not, our anger tends to be unrighteous instead of righteous, destructive rather than constructive. Therefore, the goal is to keep anger from providing an occasion for sinful behavior. Unfortunately, that is exceedingly difficult for most people. As the book of James tells us in 1:20, most anger does not accomplish the righteousness God desires but rather displays the selfishness of humanity. Anger is not inherently sinful, but our sinful natures can quickly move it in that direction. At the moment, it’s easy to convince ourselves our anger is truly righteous when it actually falls short of the mark. 

What are your thoughts about the nature of anger? How frequently do you experience feelings of anger? How often are your feelings legitimately “righteous”? Would you say you have control over your anger, or does it sometimes seem to be controlling you?

Scriptures: John 13:35, Luke 9:23, Ephesians 4:26-27

While Paul doesn’t identify anger as inherently sinful, he warns us against letting our anger become an occasion for sin. This isn’t always easy, but not impossible. I suggest that if we’re victorious over sinful anger, we must first understand where it comes from. What are the driving forces behind our anger? Just like kudzu, unless we get to the root of the matter, it will continue to grow at a frightening rate. While specific causes of anger are unique to each individual (and we should work to figure out what those are), there are a couple of overarching causes at work in our particular culture that we would do well to consider. 

First, it’s high time we admit we’ve become a culture that rewards outrage. The role models of our society aren’t the peacemakers, the gentle, those willing to be loving and kind. If anything, those are the wimps, the losers, the irrelevant, and most likely, the ones to get run over. Instead, it’s the fighters, the belligerent, who aren’t going to take anything from anybody that we admire. Our heroes are those willing to do whatever it takes to make sure things go their way and woe to those who get in their way. Whether talking about social media, sports, the business world, politics, or even the church, rewards move toward those who can find something to get mad about and then foster anger in others. The notion of turning the other cheek when someone slaps us can be so irrelevant as to be laughable. 

When we live in that atmosphere day after day, we can’t help but be influenced by it. It creates sort of a greenhouse effect. Like a kudzu vine, the anger culture stealthily works its way into every area of our lives until it eventually becomes the norm, not the exception. We would do well to take a good long look at how our lives are impacted by a culture of anger because that’s not who we’re called to be. Jesus said, 

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – (John 13:35) 

We are called to be different, and if the church shirks its responsibility, what hope does our culture have but to sink further and further into a cauldron of anger? 

A second cause of anger is our unwillingness and our inability to suffer. As Brené Brown says, “Because we have lost the capacity to suffer, we turn our pain into anger. It’s so much easier to cause pain than to feel pain.” For many of us, a primary goal in life is avoiding pain at all costs. Whether the pain is physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, or relational, we want nothing to do with it, and we’ve developed all sorts of stratagems to make sure it stays away. Even though Jesus modeled a life of service, we’re often unwilling to become vulnerable enough to serve others. Even though Jesus sacrificed his very life for our sake, we want to ensure our needs are met before sacrificing on behalf of others. Even though Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” – (Luke 9:23), we resent the opportunities to do those things. 

Inevitably, though, suffering does find its way into our lives. That’s simply part and parcel of living in a broken world. Still, instead of allowing suffering to mature us and make us more like Jesus, we get angry. We get angry with God, with those who may have caused the pain, and sometimes with innocent bystanders. How many children have been abused by parents who never dealt with their own abuse? How many husbands and wives have borne the wrath of their spouses because married life proved hard, and they were too immature to learn and grow from the pain? How many friendships, business partnerships, and churches have been torn asunder because the involved parties weren’t willing to do the hard work of reconciliation? 

I’ve mentioned two factors that can lead to anger, but there are many more. What others can you think of? What sort of situations can trigger your anger? Can you identify what may be driving your experience of anger?

Scriptures: Proverbs 14:29, Proverbs 29:22, Ecclesiastes 7:9, Ephesians 4:31-32

“In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.” – Ephesians 4:26-27 

We’ve established that anger is a normal emotion and not necessarily sinful. Nevertheless, because we are sinful creatures, our anger can and does cause us to sin. So, what are we to do? What are some practical things we can do to live out our calling in a culture that pushes us in the opposite direction? Paul suggests we make good use of our waking hours and avoid giving the devil a foothold. 

In my experience, the best way to use my time is to spend time with Jesus. If we’re going to be like Jesus, we’ve got to be with Jesus. He is our source and strength to live the kind of life he calls us to live. Are you spending adequate time with him in prayer and allowing his word to shape your thinking and living? Like anyone else, I can permit other things to take priority over him, but it always shows up. Sometimes, I can get short with my wife and have ridiculous feelings of entitlement and resentment. That is always a reminder for me to put first things first and evaluate how much time I spend with Jesus. 

Another thing we can do is gain some perspective. One of the unfortunate byproducts of a toxic culture is an inflated view of ourselves. We begin to imagine we’re really much more important than we are. Last week, I was flying home from a mission trip and found myself in the usual long immigration and customs line to get out of the country. I had plenty of time to catch my flight, but feelings of self-importance began manifesting in my heart. When I finally got up to the immigration officer, he had the nerve to step out of his booth and go to the restroom! I was outraged! After all, this was me being inconvenienced, not just anybody! Those thoughts betrayed my rising, unwarranted anger. 

I suggest it’s a good practice for Christ-followers to look in the mirror occasionally and ask, “What’s so special about you?” What is so special about any of us that we feel demanding and entitled? The fact is, we’re nothing but sinners saved by grace who don’t deserve anything but justice for our sinfulness. Perspective can go a long way toward setting us free from sinful anger. 

Finally, a third practice that can keep us from sinful anger is to practice forgiveness. Most people are familiar with Martin Luther King, Jr. and his emphasis on forgiveness. Still, few are aware of the great influence of his father in developing this perspective. To his flock and the larger Atlanta community, MLK, Sr. was known as “Daddy King,” the pastor of historic Ebenezer Baptist Church for 40 years. 

As you probably know, in April 1968, his son was murdered in Memphis, TN, by James Earl Ray. What you may not know is that just six years later, in June 1974, Rev. King’s wife, Alberta, was shot and killed by Marcus Chenault as she played the organ on a Sunday morning. It’s impossible to imagine the depth of pain and suffering he must have experienced in the loss of his son and his wife. Surely, he must have experienced great sadness and feelings of anger. Nevertheless, he did not allow his anger to define him or cause him to hate. 

In 1980, just a few years before he passed away, Rev. King wrote his autobiography and penned these words: “There are two men I am supposed to hate. One is a white man, the other is black, and both are serving time for having committed murder. James Earl Ray is a prisoner in Tennessee, charged with killing my son. Marcus Chenault was institutionalized as deranged after shooting my wife to death. I don’t hate either one. There is no time for that, and no reason, either. Nothing that a man does takes him lower than when he allows himself to fall so far as to hate anyone.”