I get angry. A lot. This might come as a surprise to some of the people who know me, because I work hard at controlling it. I’ve learned that one of the secrets to having a successful marriage, as well as to keeping friends, is not to say the first thing that pops into my head. And while self-control is, generally speaking, a good thing, the flip side of all that practice controlling my reactions is that sometimes I’m too slow to respond to situations that should legitimately provoke anger. The bottom line is that it takes very little to make me feel angry, which is (usually) a bad thing, but it takes a lot to make me act out of anger, which is (usually) a good thing.
Anger is a deeply rooted part of my personality. I don’t know if it’s literally true that I was born this way, but it certainly feels like it. And because I know this about myself, I have no excuse not to show compassion toward others who struggle with some deeply rooted parts of their personality.
I know it’s not a sin to feel angry. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian church, “In your anger do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). Equally, it’s not a sin to feel pleasure at being admired by others (temptation to pride), sexual desire (temptation to immorality), or an enjoyment of nice possessions (temptation to greed). But just a few verses later Paul wrote, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (Ephesians 4:31), and I’ve found for myself that anger usually produces in me a strong temptation to do or to say something that is sin.
Temptation is never something we can take lightly. Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13). But, and please hear this because this is crucial, it is not a sin to be tempted. Christ himself was “tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15).
Psalm 137 was written shortly after Israel was taken captive into Babylon. It comes out of a place of almost unimaginable grief, and horror, and pain, and, yes, anger. And it ends in a very disturbing way:
Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”
Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks
(Psalm 137:7-9).
Many people are shocked to find something like this in the Bible. For me, however, it’s been incredibly comforting because, you see, I’ve been to that place. And this Psalm taught me that, even in that darkness, God was with me. Holding me. Telling me I would be okay. That temptation is not sin, and feeling angry is not the same thing as acting in hate. It’s not too much to say that meditating on this Psalm radically changed my prayer life, and my ability to offer myself fully to God without hiding anything or holding anything back.
The lesson in this is that God deals in reality. Whatever the reality of your situation, whatever you’re dealing with, whatever you’re feeling, Jesus wants to be there with you, to deal with it in reality. When you’re so angry that you’d happily murder the children of the people who hurt you. When you’re so lost in desire, or despair, or bitterness, or depression, or feelings that you can’t even name, that it seems like there’s no way out, he will be there, going through it with you, if you’ll just be honest with him. It’s time for the masks to come off. Even if you were born that way. No, especially if you were born that way.