Being Angry Well

How can we be angry well? I don’t know if I’ve ever learned that in my life. I don’t think my parents ever intentionally taught me how to handle my anger—their main rule towards the matter was that parents should never fight in front of their kids. I do think that’s better than displaying destructive anger in front of your children, but the third and better alternative is to fight well in front of your kids. Do any parents do this? Have I ever seen anger modeled well? When it came to dealing with my own anger, I think the implicit message was that it was bad to be angry. I was told what I did and said in anger was very wrong, and that I needed to simply control myself, but wasn’t taught how. How do we teach our kids about how to handle anger?

I think there are two main reasons why being angry well is so difficult. The first is that anger by nature is so explosive and blinding that it’s hard to handle at all. It’s like holding a bomb, or walking on a high wire—one misstep, and things can blow up and go to pieces. You can say or do something that you can’t even bear to mention later. It’s no wonder we go out of our way to avoid it, and tell our kids to do the same.

But the second reason it’s so difficult to learn about and model how to handle anger well is that anger is by nature private and deep. We only get angry about the things we really care about. Anger is love in action; it is our defense against a threat to the things we care the most about. I think it was C.S. Lewis who said, “the opposite of love is not hatred; it is indifference.” Many people are good at hiding or repressing their anger, or they simply don’t get angry at all until you get close enough to threaten what they care about. I was pretty good at never getting angry until I got married, until I had kids. Then I realized exactly how bad I was at handling my anger.

If I could teach myself, and my kids, something about how to be angry well, I think it would be these three things:

Be angry for the right reason. When you become angry, ask yourself, what am I defending? And that will show you what you love. This is the hardest point, because most of the time, I find that what I am defending is my ego, my pride, my comfort—and in order to change my anger, I really have to change what I love. I have to rid myself of those idols. I have to be more absorbed in God’s character, his commands, to truly feel and believe and love righteousness. Because that is God’s anger; it is a righteous anger—anger at evil, at sin. Ephesians commands us to “be angry”—but it must be for the right reason.

Be slow to anger. God’s anger is not explosive; it is not absent—it is slow. The analogy used throughout the Old Testament (Numbers, Deuteronomy, Judges, Isaiah) is that it has to be “kindled” before it “burns.” It is held in contrast to his “abundant lovingkindness” (Numbers 14:18, Nehemiah 9:17). Proverbs says, “a fool’s anger is known at once” (12:16); “he who is slow to anger has great understanding” (14:29); “a gentle answer turns away wrath” (15:1). The Bible speaks of God “turning away” from his anger, as from a state, as a result of choice—his anger is not described as an uncontrollable emotion, as mine often is. It is something nursed slowly, with great care and intentionality, never quickly. And love, kindness, and the gentle word should always come more readily.

Don’t sin in anger. It’s easy to sin in anger, so easy that the Bible tells us to simply avoid anger at times (Ephesians 4:31, Colossians 3:8). So practically we have to set limits and guidelines for ourselves. Some good ones I’ve heard are never to mention the word “divorce,” never to throw anything or act out physically, never to argue in the car or at the dinner table, to let go of the anger before going to sleep even if the issue isn’t necessarily fixed. Even in the heat of the moment, we must constantly ask ourselves: is my anger causing me to sin?

So we must be angry for the right reason, by learning how to love righteousness instead of self. We must be angry in the right way, by learning to nurse our anger slowly with deliberation and care. And we must be wary and establish practical limits for our anger, so that we don’t sin. All of this is such an antithesis to how it feels natural to handle my anger—for selfish causes, as an emotion, with disregard for the consequences—that in the end I suppose I need to simply ask God to give me the insight and power I need to transform myself in this area. At least that’s someplace to start.