Do You Struggle With Anger?

There is a little verse in James that has always given me trouble.

“Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” James 1:19

I’ve memorized it, recited it, posted it around the house, and still, I struggle with this.

It’s easier to just speak and not listen. It’s actually the selfish way, as if what I have to say is so important that it must be said now.

And then it tells us not to be quickly angered. Those who are quick to speak their mind, those fast talking, blurt-it-out, ” I call it as I see it” people are not known to be great listeners or very longsuffering. They are actually known to be angry because they’ll argue until their blue in the face about foolishness, especially when you disagree with them. (Proverbs 14:3, 7; 29:20, 18:6, Ecclesiastes 10:14). Even teenagers find it fun to “push their buttons” to see what this type of person will say and do.

See, an angry, hasty spirit is never at peace. If it can be provoked, it will be. If it can be offended, it will be. An angry person is always looking for a problem. So, when an angry person is provoked by the trials of life—>it yields an angry outbursts and a failure to listen to others.

Whereas a heart that is restrained and has its passions under the control of the Holy Spirit, when provoked by life’s trials—>hears each side—>is slow to respond and considers the matter in wisdom—>when it does respond it’s in meekness and God’s wisdom rather than wrath. (A soft answer turns away wrath.)

Do you struggle with anger? I have. Jerry Bridges lists anger in his list of common Christian vices that are commonly overlooked in his excellent book Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate. (One of my favorite books, by the way.)
When God showed me how dangerous my anger was when my kids were young, and that it was diametrically opposed to God, his nature and my own spiritual growth, I started a ruthless “mortification” of this sin. When I became sinfully angry, I repented. I asked my toddlers for forgiveness. I begged God to help me. He did, by His grace, but every now and then it is still a temptation.

Anger comes in many “flavors” like Breyer’s ice cream.  Anger’s varieties include division, hostility, smoldering resentment toward another person, disappointment, self-pity or discontentment.

At the root of anger is the belief that life has not gone your way. God has withheld good, and somehow you’ve got the short end of the stick, and that you must forcibly right this terrible cosmic wrong.

I think that one of the reasons God tells us to be “swift to hear” is that we often talk to ourselves and listen to ourselves more than we listen to God’s word.

To cure anger, we must run to God’s word. Be swift to hear! Not just a “passive listen” while you wait for your turn to vent all your grievances to the Lord in prayer, but a full fledged, all-in pursuit of God’s word. Taking God’s Word and reading until you are in agreement, however long that takes.

Be a reader/hearer who is willing to change course based on what she learns about God’s character and His plans for her life. A reader who takes to heart God’s heart and renames what we perceive as evil, and calls it what God does: “God meant it for good.” “All things work together for good to them that love God.” Embracing God’s word, loving God’s word, esteeming it as truth. Holding fast to it rather than believing our own sometimes crazy thoughts and feelings!

I know that commentators largely say that this passage deals with personal interactions with others, and teaches us how to have holy interactions vs. angry ones, and I believe this is true.

But when you struggle with anger of any form, we must listen to God first, before we can deal rightly with other men. When we are quick to hear God’s word, we’ll be more apt to deal justly with our neighbor.

Matthew Henry says:

“If men would govern their tongues, they must govern their passions…If we would be slow to speak, we must be slow to wrath.”

And for those who are quick to speak up for “things of God” as though you are super zealous for righteousness and assume your anger is holy, he warns,

“For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”It is as if the apostle had said, “Whereas men often pretend zeal for God and his glory in their heat and passion, let them know that God needs not the passions of any man: his cause is better served by mildness and meekness than by wrath and fury.

and

“The worst thing we can bring to a religious controversy is anger. This, however it may pretend to be raised by a concern for what is just and right, is not to be trusted. Wrath is a human thing, and the wrath of man stands opposed to the righteousness of God.

Those who pretend to serve the cause of God hereby show that they are acquainted neither with God or his cause.

In order to curb anger, we need to know ourselves: if we are angry, we need to confess it as sin against God and others. If you’ve been angry with another person, or if you’ve damaged someone by your anger, you need to ask forgiveness.

Like any sin, don’t pretend it’s no big deal. It is. Ask God to help you see it as He does.

I’ll leave you with this powerful quote that Peter has often read to us in devotions, and to our teen youth group as well:(quoting A Biblical Theology of Missions)

“Sin is preeminently a wrong to God.

It is the terrible treason that triest to wrest the throne from Perfect Goodness and Illimitable love.

It is one long, incessant attempt to dethrone the Deity…

It turns the heart into a dark chamber of treacherous plotting against the government of God.

It is the ceaseless attempt to undermine the dominion of the Divine.

One sin is incipient war with God and all good…it is not merely an assault upon the throne of God; it is the blow struck full at the face of that Father.

Sin is the unsheathed sword and the straight thrust at the heart of God. It is the crucifixion of the good, the slaying fo the Son-of-God nature, the murder of the life divine. Sin never rests til it has crowned innocence with thorns, and made it spear-thrust into the heart of unsullied righteousness.”