Why Are You So Mad?, a devotional by Gregg Matte on Youversion
Considering the matter of anger, we could certainly conclude that anger is a secondary emotion; it is the result of another feeling. Anger is at the surface, but the emotion that triggers it is the root of the problem. That is the answer to your why. It is precisely this which makes the difference between legitimate anger (not sinful) and illegitimate anger (sinful). The question that we should ask ourselves is the following: “why am I angry?” Is it because of my preferences or is it because of God’s purposes? There is a vast difference between the two.
When you get angry because your desires are not met, the reason behind your why is your preferences. There is something that you want, but that you are not getting. This can be: respect, love, the fastest lane in the highway, a parking space, the best table at a restaurant, and so on. Your selfishness is being confronted, and you want to “fight back.” You feel that you “deserve” something that you are not getting. We get frustrated because of unmet expectations.
The second reason behind your why is utterly different. You get angry because God’s purposes are challenged. Something illegitimate takes place, and that makes us angry. Some people call this “holy anger.” William Wilberforce headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for twenty years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. He and other evangelicals were horrified by what they perceived as a depraved and un-Christian trade, and the greed and avarice of the owners and traders of slaves. God created men in His image and likeness. To see these truths challenged raised “holy anger” in Christians who put God’s purposes first.
Jesus is always the ultimate example of legitimate anger. In today’s Bible reading you will see some examples of legitimate anger expressions and the reasons behind them. The question we should all ask when anger arises is, why am I angry? The answer will allow us to realize its legitimacy.
Thought of the Day
When I get angry, I need to ask myself, “Why am I angry? Is it because my preferences or God’s purposes are being challenged?”
Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.
Ephesians 4:26-27
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Ephesians 4:30-32
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
James 4:1-10
And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once,
Mark 1:43
And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
Mark 3:5
And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.
Mark 10:13-16
And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”
Mark 11:15-17
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.
John 11:33-34, 36-38
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