Anger

Anger is an emotion expressed to correct a perceived wrong. While it is part of being made in the image of God and in and of itself anger is not sinful, but I tend to believe that only God can be angry without sinning. I have heard too many people try to justify their anger as being a righteous anger but it is too easy to cross that line of self-righteousness in the process. The world is constantly teaching us that we have rights that should not be violated and it is anger that most often is used to defend these perceived violations of our “rights.” The bible teaches us to be peacemakers with one another. Even in the Matthew 18 discipline process the goal is restoration not simply that of an empowered rebuke. While anger may be a God created emotion, look at the account of Jonah and the Ninevites. Jonah was angry (a God created emotion) however it was within an uncontrolled anger that Jonah’s pride blinded him from being able to see the mercy that God has shown to the Israel nation countless times and it was in the same pride that Jonah refused to see a merciful God extending an opportunity for grace and forgiveness to the Ninevites. At best someone may be frustrated with something and be wrestling with how to react or respond to something but even in that moment before anger becomes full bloom, it is best to practice “even a fool is wise when he keeps his mouth shut.”
With my children I teach them through James chapter 4 and show them where more often than not their anger stemmed from a right desire that became wrongfully a “must have” in the situation. When one of my kids (or me for that matter) would like a situation or conversation to go a certain way for good selfless reasons and it doesn’t, the anger that follows cannot be deemed righteous. It must be looked at as idolatry, something that in the moment we have allowed to progress from a desire to a god. We want something, we don’t get it and so we get angry. Even if what we want is good, the anger is sin.