Anger

Oh the things that makes us angry. Anger even occurs in the littlest of beings on this earth.

But I have realized the difference between righteous anger and selfish anger; and I have experienced both.

I remember one specific time I experienced righteous anger. I was sitting at my computer and saw a news flash online about someone harming a young child in a very illegal and exposing kind of way. It made me angry at the injustice toward these little ones, how they have no way to defend themselves. However, just as quick the anger came, it subsided just as quickly and the result of it put a desire for me to be active in some way to help and prevent more stories like this one.

With selfish anger, the anger takes longer to subside. And often times if I reflect on what made me so angry I notice I start boiling up again. Unlike righteous anger I do not want to help the cause, I want to help me and focus and reflect on how much I was wronged.

It’s the selfish anger that causes us to sin and to do foolish things.

Psalm 106:33 - They made Moses angry, and he spoke foolishly. (NLT)

Here is one example how someone in scripture let his anger get the best of him and did a foolish mistake. The other cool thing here is that Moses was punished for his foolish anger, just like we have been. We may not be punished to his extreme, but when we are foolish in our anger we do experience some kind of consequence. Perhaps a rebuke from someone, a broken relationship, some kind of financial hardship, or worse; but we do experience some kind of “punishment” when we are foolish in our selfish anger.

My dad gave me some wise advice before I became a parent. He said if I react to my child’s behaviour when I get angry, I have let the behaviour get too far. I need to stop the behaviour before it gets to that point. After reading books I realized that responding to a child’s behaviour out of anger only teaches them to fear you and learn how far they can push you, it does not teach them anything constructive. It’s about stopping their bad behaviour not about when we become angry.

Yes we need to learn how to control our selfish anger, I agree with that. However I think it needs to go deeper than that. I think we need to find our triggers and work on those. When it comes to selfish anger, guaranteed the triggers usually have to do with our own selfishness over someone else pushing our buttons. Yes I do agree that people do push our buttons accidentally or on purpose, but that still does not give us a justified reason to explode.