if I’m Angry

Many people have this unrealistic notion that Christians are not supposed to get angry. I don’t know where they got that but it’s quite funny when everyone expects us to be oh so nice while everyone can blow up in outrage anytime they want to.

What most people refuse to recognize is the plethora of verses in the Bible where God didn’t mind His people being angry. The Book of Psalms is filled with a wide range of human emotions and one of the recurring themes that I noticed aside from the usual praise, despair and hope is the inclusion of angry prayers. One of those I’m going to quote below. This is from Psalms 83: 13- 15

13 Make them like tumbleweed, O my God,
like chaff before the wind.
14 As fire consumes the forest
or a flame sets the mountains ablaze,
15 so pursue them with your tempest
and terrify them with your storm.
The verse doesn’t sound very angry when you read it like that. Try another version and see for yourself:
My God! I’ve had it with them!
Blow them away!
Tumbleweeds in the desert waste,
charred sticks in the burned-over ground.
Knock the breath right out of them, so they’re gasping
for breath, gasping, “God.”
Bring them to the end of their rope,
and leave them there dangling, helpless.
Then they’ll learn your name: “God,”
the one and only High God on earth.

You see, many of us have never been angry enough to pray that God would chase our enemies and scare them beyond their wits. I suspect that for the most part, we are simply annoyed with some people and we never really want God to strike them down like the writer of that Psalm prayed.

But why did God allow such angry Psalms to be included in the Bible? Isn’t the Bible supposed to be the Good Book? I’m no expert but I have a hunch that God allowed it because the ability to feel a wide range of emotions and to have the choice on what to do with those emotions are the distinctive marks of our free will and humanity. He meant for us to have a choice.

Ephesians 4: 26 gives us wise counsel.
In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry…
Getting angry may not be that bad at all. Sometimes it can even drive you to be very passionate about something good and noble. It’s what you do with that anger that spells the hairline difference.