Taking an angry tumble

sanctification. it’s a process.

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

The night before a recent tumble, I had been angry at an ongoing situation of injustice. There was no “taking care of it before the sun went down”¹ — a great ideal — but unfortunately not happening in a timely manner for this particular circumstance. That morning, I’d woken up feeling beat down and more than a little beat up. My elevated emotions were better under control, but I could still feel them running in the background…they’d only need a little encouragement to roar forth once more and engulf me into their breakers.

A couple hours later, they got their chance…and I…didn’t stand a chance. And since I was with others at the time, neither did they.

Decent into Madness

I’ve looked back at the situation multiple times from different angles. I still don’t know if my need for friends and companionship on that day outweighed the possibility of my anger getting the best of me. Maybe I should have just stayed home and out of everyone’s way. But, instead, I went. And, rather than fleeing the temptation of a little opening that left me room to vent, I took it and blew the opportunity wide open. 

And, dear reader, in that moment, I also blew it. Because not only did I vent about the current injustice, but one frustration flowed into another frustration and another until I was one big, crazy blob of seeing red. It was like the time I was a step behind my young toddler as she slow-rolled down a staircase right in front of my grasp. But in this case, I was both mom and toddler — I felt the tumble and yet, was seemingly powerless to stop my descent into madness.

Repentance is Grace

Unfortunately, my rant didn’t solve anything. I left feeling spent and also ashamed. All the justification in the world was powerless to change the fact that I sinned in my anger. Perhaps Paul had something like this in mind when he wrote, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15) 

Thankfully, like Paul, I’m not left to save myself:

“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 7:21 - 8:4)

Wretched woman that I am! Why is that so hard to read? Why is that so hard to write? I think in this situation, admitting I didn’t handle my anger well — that I sinned in my anger — seems to negate the original injustice. But both can be true at the same time. I can say it’s good to be stirred to anger over injustice, but expressing it the way I did wasn’t good. Thankfully, in Christ, God can and will use even this low moment as He continues to sanctify me. It’s always a good reminder that repentance is grace: “For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” (2 Cor 7:8-10)

Sanctification of Anger?

For me, part of my sanctification journey is not only tumbling down stairs but then, also getting back up, remembering Christ as my only hope in life and death, repenting and trying again. 

My recent outburst of anger reminds me of the time, as a young high school student, I posed a question to a group of peers sitting around the same lunch table: “What do I have to be thankful for? My own dad didn’t want me.” That day was my first foray into publicly dealing with grief. Since then, there have been many things to grieve, and each time, God has been faithful. It hasn’t been without pain. It hasn’t been without troubled relationships. But it also hasn’t been without God-provided growth. 

It’s my hope that my general trajectory in other areas that don’t come easily — dealing with anger for instance — eventually goes from big falls to faithfully running the race set before me, much like a young child learning to crawl, walk and run. It’s a process. It’s all a process. 

Be Angry but Do Not Sin²

David Powlison, in his book Good & Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness, makes the case that anger can be good, but so often goes wrong, and I tend to agree with him. He says anger can be mild, veiled, buried, glossed over, or altogether intense. He explains that not feeling angry is also problematic: “Something truly wrong is happening — not necessarily to you — and you don’t care enough to care…In an odd way, absence of appropriate outrage is also an anger problem.”³ So both the presence of anger and the absence of anger can be problematic. But then, it can also be a great good. Powlison writes: “[Anger done right] says, ‘That’s wrong’ and acts to protect the innocent and helpless. It says, ‘That’s wrong’ and energizes us to address real problems.”⁴

But it’s hard to do anger right. And Powlison is quick to acknowledge this. He writes in the introduction, “This book is not about ‘solving’ anger problems. That word solve suggests that we can arrive. Give us some answers, change some behaviors, and — just like that — no more problems. It suggests that bad anger is simply a bad habit. But anger is not a problem to solve. It’s a human capacity — like sex, happiness, and sorrow. It is a complex human response to a complex world. And like all human capacities and responses, it sometimes works well, but too often goes bad. Anger creates problems. But having and expressing the right kind of anger in the right way is a good goal.”⁵ 

I desire to learn how to express the right kind of anger in the right way. I’m not there yet. I revert back to my flesh more than I want. But just as I’ve seen God renew and redeem the way I grieve, I’m confident He’ll do the same with my anger. 

Powlison’s prayer at the end of chapter 1 is worth sharing in closing: “Lord, let the purposes of your compassion and mercy shine into the waste of my wraths and sorrows, and give me peace.”⁶ 

Amen.

1. Ephesians 4:26-28: “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.”

2. Ephesians 4:26-28: “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.”

3. Powlison, Good & Angry, p. 21

4. Powlison, Good & Angry p. 1

5. Powlison, Good & Angry, p. 2

6. Powlison, Good & Angry, p. 22

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Recommend Resource

Good & Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness by David Powlison