Are You Angry & Frustrated?

I admit it. I struggle with anger and frustration on a fairly constant basis. I think most men do although I know its not relegated to just us guys alone. Part of the prevalence might be tied to the fact that its one of the only emotions apart from happiness that men are allowed to feel. Most emotions outside of these two get you made fun of with descriptions like "soft" or "pansy" being hurled your way. So we tend to embrace anger early on and maybe even use it as a one-tone expression of many other emotions like a camouflaged tarp of sorts. Doing this allows us to hide the root of the true issue and avoid the potential assault of your manliness.

It gets worse, at least for me. On some level I have managed to embrace my anger and frustration as mostly justified and a badge of honor. Allow me to elaborate and invite you to introspectively decide whether or not you can relate. First off, anger in and of itself is not a sin. Verses like Ephesians 4:26 state to "Be angry" then cautions "but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil." This implies that anger can certainly lead you to sin but by itself may not be wrong. God is often angry with His creation but rightly so. We call this righteous anger. Anger is a natural and expected reaction to injustice. If someone hurts your loved one and causes them harm, you are right to be angry about it. You are right to desire justice and consequences for the assailant.

I might even argue that you need anger to do things like protect your family, go to war, defend yourself and others. Jesus got angry with the people that were using the Temple as their personal kiosk space for selling goods. He turned over their tables of merchandise causing their products and money to scatter across the floor stating, "It is written, My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers." Again, righteous anger born from the injustice of people making a mockery out of holy place for their own personal profit and gain.

But lets be honest, most times your anger is because you got cut off in traffic. Your anger is from the Cowboys losing another game. Your anger is over the unfair way in which your kids soccer team lost on Saturday morning. Your anger is set aflame when a clueless shopper stands in the middle of the isle and is blocking you from passing through or reaching the next item on your shopping list. You are angry because your wife had a certain tone or your kids did not do their chores. You are not practicing righteous anger in most cases. And even if it starts off as the righteous kind, is that where it stays or does it progress into the area that Scripture warns against...sin?

Even if you are not punching holes in sheetrock or throwing tantrums like a three year old where by now, you would have most likely been invited to attend anger management classes, you still could be and likely are struggling to tame this fiery beast of an emotion. The irony is it can be so consuming in one moment. You almost feel like the Hulk, bursting through your clothes, turning red instead of green, muscles tensing as if to rip through your shirt, fists clenching along with your teeth, restraining the ferocity only so as to keep from crossing those social barriers. But if you could spit out a fireball and hit the object of your anger squarely, without consequence, you probably would. Then, almost as quickly as the anger ignited, the flame goes out. Like the Hulk returning to Banner, you have a sobering realization of the animal you just showed everyone. You see the facial reactions of those around you. You try to convince yourself that it was still justified but a certain level of shame smacks you in the face.

"This is not how I want to act. This is not a Christ-like example. What am I doing?" 

But does this brief bout with shame prevent the next outburst? Well, if you are reading this because of the title and you stuck around this long, my guess is no...it did not prevent the next time. It didn't for me either so you are in good (or not so good) company. So why am I writing this? Do I have a solution? Have I finally overcome and can't wait to share my methods with you? I am not sure yet but I want to share a revelation with you anyway because I am certain its valid, important, and possibly "a key" if not "the key" to help me and you start turning things around. In fact "turning" is a great word because the word "repentance" means to turn-from or to change your mind.

If we are to repent from sinful anger, we have to start with a change of mind. I personally need to stop wearing it as a badge of justified honor. I need to stop thinking about how God displays His anger or how Jesus does it and realize my ability to operate in a righteous way while hot-under-the-collar is very poor at best. But the second thing is the revelation that I believe God put on my heart while praying about this topic. He revealed that I was embracing a victim mentality. He may as well have hit me with a lightning bolt because that shocked and hurt me. "I don't act like those people who always play the victim!" You see God knows I see those types of people as immature and pathetic, always blaming others, or circumstances, or upbringing, or the patriarchy, or some scapegoat for why they haven't progressed to where they would like to be. So I simply can NOT be like that, right?

Well God kept showing me more. He revealed that my frustration which is what gives birth to anger is typically ignited by an expectation not being met. When that happens, I feel a sense of injustice. Who does injustice happen to? Victims. So either what happened really was not a miscarriage of justice OR I have an unusual amount of unfair & unjust things happening to me and have become a truly unfortunate victim. I cannot have it both ways, so which is it? Like the sobering experience of Hulk to Banner, I laid in bed with my eyes wide open and my jaw agape finally seeing my issue for what it was. It no longer had any honorable flavor to it. It was just a full display of selfishness, naked and laid bare for me to see clearly, perhaps for the first time.

Where does Scripture say your expectations should usually be met? Furthermore if they are not met  why do you have the right to throw the adult form of a tantrum? And how is that adult form any less ridiculous than the kind that toddlers throw just because you're not laying across the floor kicking and screaming when mom refuses to purchase the Lucky Charms? God invited me to do two things and then put it on my heart to invite you into the same journey:

1. Change your mind. Whatever justifications you embrace that allow you to foster continuous frustration, lay them down. Realize you are not doing it how Jesus did it. You are sinning, so repent.

2. Stop being a victim. We live in a fallen world where people get cut off in traffic, referees make bad calls, and fellow shoppers lack self awareness blocking up the aisleways. Deal with it by (a) expecting it and (b) by adopting a gracious disposition. 

To desire otherwise is akin to expecting a special lane on the highway just for you. Or maybe a remote with a trap door that when pushed, makes the referee fall into a pit until he reverses his bad call. And why don't you offer to help the old lady in the grocery isle? Maybe she is struggling to see the labels or the product she needs is on the top shelf. I am way too early into this epiphany to claim any victory yet. So every word of admonishment contained herein applies to me and maybe doubly so. But I am willing and even excited to take these two steps. Will you consider joining in on the experiment?