The bible is pretty clear about the effect of anger and the need to avoid it.
A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
Proverbs 15:1
A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel.
Proverbs 15:18
Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
Psalm 37:8
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
Ephesians 4:31
We could go on. There are a huge number of verses in the bible explaining to us — telling us — that anger is destructive. That it does not help. That it is harmful to civic society. And that God does not want it to be a characteristic of His family.
So, anger is always wrong, then?
Righteous Anger
An article in the Guardian newspaper reporting the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire said this:
‘You recognise the bravery of the emergency services; the solidarity of the community; the heartening humanity of the volunteer effort. But something else hovers in the air in this poor, crammed, diverse part of west London that was not palpable after those terror attacks. It is pure, righteous fury.’
Sometimes, anger seems to be just the right emotion to articulate our feelings in the face of certain events.
There is no shortage of examples in the bible of the righteous fury of men of God witnessing the sin and corruption of the societies they lived in.
Listen to the bristling anger of James in his letter:
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you.
James 5:1
Jesus was consumed by rage on a number of occasions — most notably when he entered the temple and saw the way in which worship had become corrupted and venal.
But also, just listen to the indignant fury of his declaration of ‘Woes’ in Luke 11.
There is no doubt, that anger can have its justified place in the emotions we feel as Christians.
We should be outraged at the treatment of the poor.
Of the venality of government.
Of injustice in our society.
All the things that exercised the prophets.
But, we need to be very careful about our justification of our anger. We should be very wary when we use the phrase righteous indignation, or Godly fury to describe our own weakness and inability to control our emotions.
As Paul warns in his letter to the Ephesians:
In your anger do not sin: do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
So, how do we avoid the anger that leads to sin? The anger that is sin.
Avoiding Anger
So long as we see ourselves as helpless in the face of our emotions, we can do nothing with them.
As a first step we need to recognise how harmful anger can be as an emotion. Once we see that — once we really recognise how destructive it can be, we can start to deal with it.
We can be slaves to our emotions, or we can be their masters.
But its rare that we can just do things through willpower. It’s not enough to say — I’m not going to get angry! Though, don’t get me wrong, exercising willpower, developing it, is something we really should be trying to do. It’s a muscle and it will atrophy without conscious exercise.
But let’s consider some basic strategies for dealing with anger.
The most important thing is to:
1. Recognise what makes us angry.
What are our triggers? What do we know has set us off historically and is likely to set us off again in the future? Knowing how the emotion controls us, allows us the opportunity to start controlling it.
Once we know our main triggers, we can start taking some steps to reducing the number of times we get angry. Avoid situations that are going to lead to anger. I could have gone to have my siesta in the bedroom. The fact that I took a nap in the living room meant that either everyone had to tiptoe around me, or I was going to get woken up. That was a situation I could have avoided.
However, we can’t just go around avoiding things. So, its also important that we:
2. Know the warning signs and step away.
We need to recognise when we’re getting angry.
If we feel that we are getting angry, we can start taking action to avert an out-burst. Step away from the situation.
I say step away because sometimes walking away can itself be seen as an aggressive act.
In school, students who have been given anger-management can often use this technique and it just blows up — because when a student walks away from a teacher that is angry at them, it will make the teacher even more furious.
It can be the same with our partner. If we’ve got to the point of an argument and we turn our backs and walk away, it can seem to be adding insult to injury and cause more anger.
Think about a phrase that will allow the person we’re angry with to accept that space is needed and understand that our turning away is not aggressive.
For instance, we might say, ‘I’m struggling to get a control of my emotions at the moment and I don’t want to say something that will be hurtful. Will you just give me a few moments to calm down and then I’ll come back to you?’
If we can’t avoid the argument, or we’re in it before we managed to avoid it, then:
3. Backing-down is often the best solution.
In the end, climbing down is the best and most successful means of deflating anger. And usually, ironically, it’s the most effective means getting your point across. The climb-down — ‘I’m sorry, I was angry, I apologise. Let me listen to your point’ — can be so shocking to the person we are engaging with that they immediately back-track themselves and seek compromise.
Most arguments are actually not worth winning. Most points did not need making. That’s why we need to actively:
4. Develop perspective.
When we’re angry, every little thing seems important. Getting ahead of that car in front of us that is driving 25 mph. The person holding us up in the queue in the supermarket. The tone of voice our partner takes with us. The way our kids roll their eyes.
It’s incredible that the things that get us mad are, 95% of the time, trivial and stupid when seen from a longer perspective.
Knowing that — repeating that to ourselves — is important in allowing these irritants to drop away.
But the fact is, that managing our emotions is hard. It’s all very well knowing that a kid kissing their teeth at you is kind of minor in the grand scheme of things in this universe, its quite another to take the reigns of our emotions and let things pass, when we can.
Or better still, deal with things with love and care.
So, its also important that we support each other.
5. Talk to a friend.
One of the best ways to develop perspective is to have a friend we can share honest conversation with.
Not the excusing-ourselves-conversation that friends can fall into, which encourages abusive behaviour, but good, supportive, brutally honest conversations, where we can say to our friend, ‘You know, I’m shouting at people too much and I really need to deal with it.’
This honest, truthful conversation can hold up a mirror to ourselves and we will often not like what we see.
But that is vitally important.
That’s why most abuse happens in the privacy of the home.
We would be embarrassed by this behaviour if it was seen in public. So make it public. Have a trusted friend you can make it public to. Hiding our anger, won’t get rid of it.
Allow the light of day to shine into your soul.
Sunlight cleanses.
