Praying With Anger – Part 2

Part 1 laid bare how emotional attachments that leads to anger are the defeat of expectations. Today, in Part 2, we will explore how anger can obscure our ability to think objectively and rationally, leading to choices that don’t honor God.

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everybody” Colossians 4:6

More people have a short fuse lately. It’s getting harder for people to muster empathy or regulate our knee-jerk reactions.

“When you anticipate something is going to be temporary, you’re able to absorb a higher level of stress. When things don’t work out as expected it makes us more prone to be aggressive with ourselves and with one another,” says Pauline Wallin, a psychologist in Camp Hill, Pa.

Reports of poor treatment ranged from inappropriate language to rudeness to sexual harassment to sparring over mask and vaccine policies:

Of course, it’s the people-have-lost-their-ever loving-minds incidents that make the news, but they are also a reflection of a deeper trend.

Once activated, anger can color people’s perceptions, form their decisions, and guide their behavior, regardless of whether the decisions at hand are related to the source of their anger.

I don’t know what it’s like to be you, and you don’t know what it’s like to be me. But by the grace of God, we can see each other‘s hearts.  Just because we don’t always agree doesn’t mean we have to be enemies. If we take a moment to listen to each other, we will find we are more alike than different. While the politicians use division and anger for their political gain, God uses the beauty of our diversity for unification.

Given that anger has the potential to grip a nation over a sustained period, it is important to understand how it may shape individual choices over time. By shaping basic cognitive and social processes, anger shapes our decisions and the lives we lead.

Politicians have done a great job at understanding that being in a negative mood can lead a person to form relatively pessimistic expectations, whereas being in a positive mood can lead to relatively optimistic expectations.

As Aristotle wrote, “angry decision makers may have a difficult time being angry at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way. Their emotional experiences and appraisals may hinder their ability to view a situation objectively and rationally. Instead, they approach situations with confidence, a sense of control, and negative thoughts about others. These appraisal tendencies may cascade into undesirable outcomes in some situations, such as aggression, unrealistic optimism, and overconfidence.”

We may have allowed anger to become entrenched in our lives by habitual practice. Still, we can also practice responding correctly until that, too, becomes a habit the watching world sees, and God is glorified in our response.

You will know your anger is controlling you when:

Selfishness not only leads to wrong thinking, but it also leads to wrongdoing.

How do we disregard scripture? Proverbs also tell us that “Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly” (14:29). Ecclesiastes advises us not to be “quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools” (7:9). Thus, it is wise to imitate God in his patience and be slow to anger because it is foolish to give in to your temper. When interacting with others, “a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1). We should be slow to anger so that we are able instead to respond with grace.

Be angry, but do not sin, and rather “ponder in your own hearts on your beds and be silent” (Psalm 4:4). Our response to feelings of anger should not be rash but should be quiet and thoughtful.

Anger itself is not a sin, but intense, unrestrained emotion can lead very quickly to corruption. As God said to Cain, “It’s desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7). In the same way, we must not let our feelings of anger lead us into sin, but we must master them and restrain them so that, like God, we can be “slow to anger and abounding in love and compassion.”