“How can anger be a gift,” you may ask, “when a previous chapter detailed its destructiveness?”Just as athletes do stretching exercises before a contest to better prepare themselves and to prevent injury, let’s do some mental stretching as we endeavor to grasp how anger can be a gift for our personal growth.
Anger is a Signal
Just as indicator lights on a car’s dashboard signal to the driver the motor’s dysfunction, so also, anger signals to us that something “under the hood” needs to be checked. What can I learn about myself as a result of detecting anger? What is my anger telling me about me?
Determine first the anger label
Is it “holy anger?” Healthy anger? Or is it unhealthy anger?
Holy anger
We’ve covered this quite thoroughly but briefly an holy anger test would measure: does what makes you angry, also anger God?
Is the anger rooted in a perceived injustice to myself or is it in my sensitivity to injustice toward other people?
A check point though. How do you handle holy anger? Not like Absalom, I hope. Second Samuel 13 tells the story of Amnon raping his half sister, Tamar. Her brother, Absalom “hated him with a deep hatred” and nursed that hatred for two years until he arranged for Amnon’s murder.
God certainly is angry with a man who rapes a woman. Was Absalom’s anger initially “holy” anger? Yes. Anger must be expressed, but not in an Absalom unholy way.
Our holy anger must be expressed constructively.
It becomes unholy anger if it is handled with vengeance
or harbored without doing something productive with it.
Anger is a Signal
Just as indicator lights on a car’s dashboard signal to the driver the motor’s dysfunction, so also, anger signals to us that something “under the hood” needs to be checked. What can I learn about myself as a result of detecting anger? What is my anger telling me about me?
Determine first the anger label
Is it “holy anger?” Healthy anger? Or is it unhealthy anger?
Holy anger
We’ve covered this quite thoroughly but briefly an holy anger test would measure: does what makes you angry, also anger God?
Is the anger rooted in a perceived injustice to myself or is it in my sensitivity to injustice toward other people?
A check point though. How do you handle holy anger? Not like Absalom, I hope. Second Samuel 13 tells the story of Amnon raping his half sister, Tamar. Her brother, Absalom “hated him with a deep hatred” and nursed that hatred for two years until he arranged for Amnon’s murder.
God certainly is angry with a man who rapes a woman. Was Absalom’s anger initially “holy” anger? Yes. Anger must be expressed, but not in an Absalom unholy way.
Our holy anger must be expressed constructively.
It becomes unholy anger if it is handled with vengeance
or harbored without doing something productive with it.
Anger Label Number Two: Healthy Anger
Like holy anger, healthy anger is an appropriate response that probably contains some holy in it. Let me explain. As mentioned in chapter one, people who have been sexually abused in childhood often carry diffused feelings about the abuse and don’t connect with an appropriate anger toward the perpetrator. The anger lies hidden within and surfaces indirectly.
Like holy anger, healthy anger is an appropriate response that probably contains some holy in it. Let me explain. As mentioned in chapter one, people who have been sexually abused in childhood often carry diffused feelings about the abuse and don’t connect with an appropriate anger toward the perpetrator. The anger lies hidden within and surfaces indirectly.
A borderline healthy/unhealthy anger would be anger toward God. Healthy anger like David in the Psalms, “Where are you oh God? You’re not coming through for me.”
Pierre Wolff wrote “May I Hate God?” He says, "Our many unexpressed fears, doubts, anxieties, and resentments prevent us from tasting and seeing the goodness of the Lord. Anger and hatred which separate us from God and others, can also become the doorway to greater intimacy with God. Religious and secular taboos against expressing negative emotions evoke shame and guilt. Only be expressing our anger and resentment directly to God in prayer will we come to know the fullness of love and freedom. Only in pouring out our story of fear, rejection, hatred and bitterness can we hope to be healed.” I.E. Psa.22:1-2 My God My God why have you forsaken me….I cry out by day but you do not answer, by night and you are silent.
Pierre Wolff wrote “May I Hate God?” He says, "Our many unexpressed fears, doubts, anxieties, and resentments prevent us from tasting and seeing the goodness of the Lord. Anger and hatred which separate us from God and others, can also become the doorway to greater intimacy with God. Religious and secular taboos against expressing negative emotions evoke shame and guilt. Only be expressing our anger and resentment directly to God in prayer will we come to know the fullness of love and freedom. Only in pouring out our story of fear, rejection, hatred and bitterness can we hope to be healed.” I.E. Psa.22:1-2 My God My God why have you forsaken me….I cry out by day but you do not answer, by night and you are silent.
The more we dare to show our whole trembling self to God as did the ancients who prayed the Psalms, the more we will be able to sense that God’s love, which is perfect love, casts out our fears, purifies our thoughts and heals our hatred.
We can carry the most anger, the most resentment toward the one we love the most because they can hurt us the worst.
David, however finishes up his venting anger to God with a statement like, “Yet, I trust you, Oh God.”
So, if there is anger toward God, spill it. Then reconcile it with something like, “I don’t understand what is happening. I don’t like it. But I trust your love for me has the best in mind for me.” Anger can be a gauge of our faith in Him. As Eugene Peterson stated in Run With the Horses, “Believers argue with God. Skeptics argue with each other.”
If this tack isn’t taken, healthy anger toward God becomes an unhealthy collection of poisonous, negative thoughts about God… a skepticism, even a rebelling against him.
Holy anger. Healthy anger. Next post will be label three: unhealthy anger.
If this tack isn’t taken, healthy anger toward God becomes an unhealthy collection of poisonous, negative thoughts about God… a skepticism, even a rebelling against him.
Holy anger. Healthy anger. Next post will be label three: unhealthy anger.
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