Dealing with Anger

Dealing with Anger

“ Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.”   —Ephesians 4:26

I’m a pouter. Yes, as a child, I learned to suffer silently. I vividly remember as an eleven or twelve year old getting scolded by my dad. That was nearly a half a century ago and times were different. My dad might erupt in a rage at some shortcoming on my part and slap me up across the back of the head or grab my shirt collar and throw me towards one corner of the room to get my attention. Incidentally, it was always the opposite corner from where he was ordering me to go so I had to go past him for another up-slap or speedy encouragement with his foot. I learned that sighing or eye rolling was not an appropriate way of expressing my frustration and protest.

Today, I can sympathize more with my dad. He was trying to keep my blended family together and struggling to keep our financial heads above the bills. As a pre-teen trying to keep up with adult chores on our gentleman’s farm, I felt wrongly accused. It seemed to me that anytime anything was broken or went wrong, I was blamed. To this day, I still feel I was innocent, but then again, I was twelve.

Early in my married life, the first 25 or 30 years, I thought I was sparing my wife grief by not sharing my frustrations. In reality, Darlene would simply assume my quietness and pouting meant she was not measuring up or had done something to offend me. I didn’t realize speaking the truth in love would have spared much grief and been healthier for our marriage.

My experiences from childhood were reinforced by the Christian notion that anger is bad. After my conversion, I came to believe any expression of negative emotions like anger, sadness, fear, and so on were non-Christian. Now, I am learning that God gave the negative emotion of anger for our benefit. True, in our fallen world, we misuse this emotion and abuse others in the process. God gave us anger as an emotional signal that something needs to be changed. It was intended to be a positive motivator to be used in giving feedback about how life can be lived better.

Scripture teaches us to “Be angry, and yet do not sin.” We keep from sinning by addressing anger before the sun goes down. A few verses later, Ephesians tells us, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” (4:31). Notice the company anger keeps in verse 31. Bitterness, wrath, slander and malice are the sins that result from allowing frustrations and disappointments to fester. If you are angry, do something with it before it does something in you or causes you to do something to others.

There are generally three ways we deal with anger: repressing it, expressing it, or releasing it. Repressing anger, stuffing it down into your personality and believing if ignored, it will go away, never works. Expressing and releasing anger are effective if done at the right time and in the appropriate manner. If we express anger within a relationship with truth and love as our motivation, good results may occur. When no good can come by expression and there is no opportunity for reconciliation, we may choose to release our anger. It actually hurts us more than the other person by keeping it.

Ephesians 4 goes on to talk about preventing anger from becoming a deep-seated hatred by applying kindness and forgiveness (32). We can only forgive and offer kindness in the face of frustration and pain as we have received the forgiveness and grace of God in Jesus Christ. Is there someone you need to forgive? Is there an injustice you need to address? By God’s grace, may you find release and appropriate expression of your anger today.