Every so often, anger rears its ugly head in my heart—either toward others or toward circumstances, and most often also toward God. It is incredibly difficult to overcome such anger, especially if it feels justified. So how do we keep it from overtaking us?
We must honestly assess our own hearts before God
The Lord has searched us and knows us (Ps. 139:1). Even before a word is on our tongues, he knows it altogether (v4). And he questions us, like he did Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?” (Gen. 4:6).
If we allow his questions to pierce us, we will find uncomfortable truths beneath the surface. While circumstances may be painful and people may hurt us, there is often a self-righteous impulse within us, like Cain, that does not like the way the Lord does business. And that impulse is what feeds the growing bitterness that infects our hearts.
Instead of indulging our grievances, we must seek the Lord’s conviction through prayer. If we are aware of our own sin, it takes the wind out of the sails of our anger.
We must pray for—not about—those who offend or hurt us
There is a difference between praying about someone and praying for them. When I was in high school and my brother was driving me crazy, I’d often pray, “Lord, please give me the strength I need to deal with him!” And for some reason, the prayer never worked! He still drove me crazy (and I probably did the same to him).
The point is not that prayer is a magic elixir for anger, but that praying about someone leaves us uninvested in their good. But God desires to pray for all people because he “desires all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). As a wise pastor once commented on this passage, it is hard to remain angry at those for whom you pray.
We must remember that the battleground of our hearts is a place for grace
There are real reasons to feel angry in this broken world, but we do so from a broken heart. If we work that anger back to our self-righteousness and idolatry, we will see that we need to change more than any of our circumstances. Before I bowed the knee to Jesus, he convicted me that I didn’t fundamentally need a savior from my suffering, but from my sin.
There was grace in God’s warning to Cain as well: “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, and you must rule over it” (Gen. 4:7). Cain did not heed God’s gracious warning and succumbed to sin.
We need not fear the hand the Lord lays upon us in our moments of anger, “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). And by the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, God doesn’t only convict us of our sin, but draws our eyes back to the cross, where we see Jesus crying, “Father, forgive them” for the same angry mob that was crucifying him (Luke 23:34).
We were a part of that crowd. And Jesus chose mercy over anger. With so great a savior and so magnificent a salvation, let’s strive to do the same.
