Keeping Your Cool…When Your Anger Is Hot!: Practical Steps to Temper Fiery Emotions (4 page)

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Authors: June Hunt

BOOK: Keeping Your Cool…When Your Anger Is Hot!: Practical Steps to Temper Fiery Emotions
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Anger 101
What Is Anger?
Anger
is a strong emotion of irritation, agitation, or hostility that occurs when a need or expectation is not met.
2
Actually, anger is a
secondary response
to something else—it’s an upsetting emotional reaction to an assumed “right” that has been violated or not fulfilled.
Of all our emotions, anger is usually considered the strongest, rawest, and potentially most destructive. We all know people who would fit this description: “An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hottempered one commits many sins” (Proverbs 29:22).
Now let’s focus on the word
expectation
. When we
expect
something, we feel we have the
right
for that something to happen. And when it doesn’t, we can feel irritated…agitated…ANGRY. Who hasn’t been there, done that? I know I have. Expectations can be the igniter when it comes to anger.
In the Old Testament, the most frequently used Hebrew word for anger is
aph
, literally meaning “nose” or “nostrils”—figuratively depicting nostrils flaring with anger. Later,
aph
came to represent the entire face as seen in two ancient Hebrew idioms:
•
“Long of face”
(or nose) means “slow to anger.” Psalm 145:8 describes God as slow to anger
—
He is not quickly provoked: “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.”
•
“Short of face”
(or nose) means “quick to anger.” Proverbs 14:17 describes a man with anger that pops off like a firecracker:
“A quick-tempered man does foolish things.”
You can almost feel the heat radiating from such vividly descriptive words. While anger has a legitimate purpose in certain situations, it must always be handled with great caution and care. As the writer of Proverbs said, “Do not make friends with a hottempered man, do not associate with one easily angered.”
4
Why? Because someone could, and usually does, get burned by fiery rage. God might as well have said, “Thou shalt not play with fire.”
What Are the Different Types of Anger?
Many people assume only one type of anger exists: Hot! However, there are many types of anger.
In my home, the burners on my stovetop come in several sizes. To warm a can of tomato soup in a small pan, I use the smallest burner. To cook bacon strips for ten people, I use the largest burner. Over my four burners is a “hood” with a ventilator, which, when turned on, helps to draw steam and smoke up and out of the kitchen.
The word
anger—
irritating anger—covers four levels of emotional heat, much like a ventilator over a stove covers four burners: indignation, wrath, fury, rage.
Burner #1—
Indignation is “simmering anger”
provoked by something that appears unjust or unkind and thus the emotion seems
justified
. At times the unrighteous religious rulers in the Bible felt indignation over Jesus’ miracles and His claim to be the Messiah; therefore, they felt justified in wanting to kill Him.
5
Their perceptions, of course, were unjustified. Meanwhile, Jesus felt
righteous indignation
toward the religious rulers for their hardened hearts. Likewise, Jesus became “indignant” when the disciples prevented parents from bringing their children to Him so He might touch and bless them: “When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.’ ”
6
Burner #2—
Wrath is “burning anger”
accompanied by a desire to avenge. Wrath often moves from the inner feeling of anger to the outer expression of anger. Vengeful anger can be deadly—both literally and figuratively. An old Chinese proverb says, “The man who opts for revenge should dig two graves.”
In the Bible, God expresses His wrath as divine judgment on those who commit willful sin: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”
7
Burner #3—
Fury is “fiery anger”
so fierce that it destroys common sense. The word
fury
suggests a powerful force compelled to harm or destroy. Respected theologian A.W. Tozer said, “The fury of man never furthered the glory of God.”
8
Some of the religious rulers were so angry with Peter and the other apostles for proclaiming that Jesus was God, “they were furious and wanted to put them to death.”
9
This is an example of why the Bible says, “Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming.”
10

 

Burner #4—
Rage is “blazing anger”
that results in loss of self-control, often to the extreme of violence and temporary insanity. After an outburst of rage, a cry of remorseful regret or disbelief is often expressed: “I can’t believe I did that!”
Yet those who continue to vent their rage toward others, including toward God, find themselves defeated by their own destructive decisions and ruined relationships. “A man’s own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the LORD.”
11
Angerʹs Progession of Intensity
Anger, if not resolved, can move from one stage of intensity to another—from mild irritation to uncontrollable rage.
• Unresolved irritation leads to indignation—justifiably
feeling
and/or acting so that a wrong should be made right.
• Unresolved indignation leads to wrath—
reacting
with revenge.
• Unresolved wrath leads to fury—
reacting
with a furious lack of self-control.
• Unresolved fury leads to rage—
reacting
with violence and temporary loss of sanity.
The School of Life
There is no way you can graduate from the school of life without learning the value of the positives and the negatives of anger.
Forest rangers are trained to fight forest fires, and they know how to “start a fire to stop a fire.” Known as
backfires
, these deliberately set fires help deprive the wildfire of fuel so firefighters can better contain the blaze.
God works with your anger in much the same way. For example, He could use your most recent incident of anger to spark
an awareness of the larger blaze
(your unresolved past anger) that may be blocking your growth and hindering your relationships.
How Can Anger Be “Good”?
Anger is a surprisingly improbable instructor, teaching us what we need to be aware of, think about, and reconsider.
The Bible says, “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
12
This means not just all
positive
things, all
right
things, all
wonderful
things work together for our good…but literally
all
things. When we release all of the hurt, injustice, fear, and frustration in our lives to the Lord, He promises to use it
all
in some way for good—even if we don’t see how that is possible.
Consider your life from God’s perspective. Anger can teach you to…
Address the past
• enabling you to recognize your buried anger
• providing insight into past hurts
• motivating you to seek healing for past hurts
Address the present
• bringing your true feelings to light
• revealing inappropriate efforts to get your needs met
• alerting you to current problems that should be addressed
Address your relationships
• enabling you to protect yourself and others from injustice
• exposing your need to set healthy boundaries
• inviting closeness within your relationships
Address your spiritual life
• helping you realize your need for a relationship with God
• leading you to apply biblical principles for overcoming anger
• encouraging you to display a Christlike response by handling your anger properly
As you can probably tell, I’ve had a change of heart—a paradigm shift—in my perspective about anger over the years. I’ve come to realize anger is a God-given emotion and a perfectly normal response mechanism. Yet anger is also an ally that can become an adversary if we don’t handle it carefully.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m a realist when it comes to anger. I recognize there is a mean and ugly side to it—a side that tears down rather than builds up. Unfortunately, “mean and ugly” is no doubt the most pervasive kind of anger in our world.
Anger is not a sin. What we
do
with our anger determines if it becomes sin.
While it’s true there are scriptures that tell us anger can be a positive influence, there are even more that warn against a negative, harmful mishandling of our strong emotions. For example, Solomon said, “Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.”
13
You may have heard the saying, “The word
anger
is one letter short of
danger
.” It’s true—our hot-blooded emotions can be dangerous. No one who has had an encounter with out-of-control anger would deny that.
Do You Need an Anger Awakening?
You’ve heard a bit about my journey down Anger Avenue, so let me ask: Where are you on this journey? Is anger a problem in your life? Or have you been on the receiving end of someone’s anger…perhaps once too often? Are you trying to intervene before things get any worse? Is your own anger damaging relationships and causing you regrets? Chances are you have an anger bowl in your life that needs to be emptied.
The most surprising aspect of my “anger awakening” was a straightforward command found in Ephesians 4:26: “Be angry, and do not sin” (NKJV). Since I did not grow up reading the Bible, I can assure you, the concept “be angry” was both perplexing and mystifying.
How could this principle be correct when so many verses in the Bible tell us to, in essence, “turn away anger”?
14
The answer lies in understanding
what kind of anger
we carry in our hearts. For example, Jesus had justifiable anger or righteous indignation, which motivated Him to
right a wrong
when He drove the money changers from the temple because of their fraudulent practices.
Another shocker—for someone who thought anger was always wrong—is the irrefutable truth that anger is a God-given emotion. The Bible never says anger, in and of itself, is bad. Anger is not a sin. What we
do
with our anger determines if it becomes sin.
Now think about this: If God considered anger a sin, then He would have been a flagrant sinner Himself because there are more than 200 references to God’s anger and wrath in the Old Testament alone. Because Scripture calls us to be “godly,” we can follow God’s example and express justifiable anger—the kind that seeks to right a wrong.
Surely it is okay—even honorable—to feel anger in unjust situations. It’s
how we handle
our natural feelings of anger that can be constructive or destructive. Anger is like many things in life that can be used for either good or bad. A knife can be used for good or for bad. It can be used for healing in the hands of a surgeon or for harm in the hands of a murderer.
In short, the
existence
of anger isn’t wrong. But the
expression
of it can be.

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