Do you ever get angry? And are you allowed to be? And how?

Leestijd / Lesezeit / Reading time: 8 min

Are you allowed to be angry? A question we receive quite often. It is often hidden in statements like: “I don’t want to be angry”, “God is love, being angry is not right”, “I have to love my enemy, don’t I?”, “How do I deal with my anger?” Let’s take a look at whether you are allowed to be angry (and how). First, let’s make you a little angry with some names you might recognize.

1. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
   Loss of life: Approximately 17 million people, including 6 million Jews during the Holocaust.
2. Joseph Stalin (1878-1953)
   Loss of life: Estimated between 6 and 20 million due to purges, forced collectivization, and political repression.
3. Mao Zedong (1893-1976)
   Loss of life: Estimated between 40 and 80 million due to famines, purges, and forced labor.
4. Pol Pot (1925-1998)
   Loss of life: Around 1.5-2 million during the Cambodian genocide.
5. Leopold II of Belgium (1835-1909)
   Loss of life: Estimated 10-15 million in the Congo Free State.

I don’t know how you feel about these people, but I am genuinely angry with them. And “angry” is actually an understatement. Furious, perhaps? And then comes the question: are you allowed to be angry about that?

There is another problem with all those wrongdoers on that list…

1. Adolf Hitler: Suicide.
2. Joseph Stalin: Stroke.
3. Mao Zedong: Heart attack.
4. Pol Pot: Heart attack.
5. Leopold II of Belgium: Complications after intestinal surgery.

Now, I don’t know what you think, but my thought could be: “Well, they got off rather easily and managed to escape their punishment quite ‘nicely’ after all.” I have to honestly say that this does not make my anger any less. Generally speaking, when someone experiences a heart attack, consciousness can be lost within seconds to minutes. The same applies to a stroke. Suicide in this form is “a flash and it’s over”, and Leopold was lying comfortably in a hospital, able to enjoy medication and anesthesia.

Are you already angry while reading this? Good! Then, with the right “mindset”, let’s take a look at whether that anger is allowed to exist:

So those people did not simply get away with it. Yes, perhaps they did on earth, but earth is only a temporary place of residence. What comes after our life… is eternal. The Bible speaks about a “lake of fire”, “outer darkness”, “eternal fire”, “torment in fire”, “eternal destruction”, and much more. And that is eternal… for all those people….

Do you think it is unfair that God punishes those people in that way? I don’t. What feelings does God have when He does this? Is it all sweetness and light, or is God angry? What do you think? That’s right, God can also be VERY angry. But pay attention:

God is a righteous judge, And a God who feels indignation every day. (Psalm 7:11 NASB)

Now we are getting somewhere. God is also angry about “unrighteousness”, and because we were created in His image (Genesis 1:26), we also know anger when we see injustice happening. There is nothing wrong with that. Yes, but God is God, we are human, and humans are not allowed to be angry, right? Well… pay attention: Jesus was God… and human! And look at what He does here:

And the Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.” (John 2:13-16 NASB)

Do you notice something? Jesus did not simply find a whip lying on the floor by coincidence, but He made one Himself, very deliberately. That took time. Jesus saw something happening that made Him righteously angry, and He made a whip Himself and then took action.

In other words, righteous anger, with all the consequences that come with it for those who do wrong, is not something that is wrong according to the Bible.

And then we come to THE key word for today: “righteous anger”. And that is a huge problem for you and me (we are not God). Because we are human and anything but righteous:

As it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one.” (Romans 3:10 NASB)

Let’s be honest: how often have we become angry with someone else without asking ourselves what our own role was? Without asking why that person acted the way they did? Yes, some people truly are “evil”, but if we look deep into our own hearts… are we really that “holy”? Really? Are we always that “righteous”?

In other words, there is nothing wrong with becoming angry about “injustice”; actually, it can be a good thing. But “righteous anger” is a problem for us, because we are human and God’s “righteous anger” is something we cannot achieve. You can see this going wrong everywhere throughout human history. We take revenge on each other in the most terrible ways, one war after another in the name of “our own sense of justice”, and it goes completely wrong! That is why God also warns us about ourselves and says:

Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord. (Romans 12:19 NASB)

Clear, right? And are we finished then? Well, no. Because we are still left with that anger. What are we going to do with it today? First of all, we do what Romans 12:19 says, and then?

Be angry at the source of the misery we see:

Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8 NASB)

That is where the misery begins; that is where the source lies. So if you are angry, make sure you are angry at the right party. God is not the cause of misery. “Your adversary, the devil” is the one you SHOULD be angry with. That is where your righteous anger begins, and nowhere else. And then, who do we become angry with after that? Because “the devil” may sound like something far away and disconnected from everyday life… So let’s look a little closer to home. Who should we be angry with?

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:6 NASB)

I, you, all of us, have consciously chosen to eat that “apple”. God had warned very clearly: do not do it, because if you do, misery will come! And what did we do? We listened to our own feelings, we thought we knew better once again, and here we are. We brought this misery upon ourselves. And the result:

To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.” Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:16-19 NASB)

So yes, the devil was the roaring lion / serpent, but we knowingly and willingly chose to trust in our own understanding, our own feelings, our own hearts, and we ate that apple despite all the warnings. Bam.

Are you beginning to get an idea of who you should be angry with and how?

Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5 NASB)

When we are angry… let us make sure that we are righteously angry at the true source of all misery…. Blaming everything on someone else, blaming everything on “the devil”, being angry in an unrighteous way, taking revenge in an unrighteous way — as human beings, we are VERY good at that… but looking in the mirror and truly examining ourselves, and accepting the consequences of our own mistakes… that is something we would rather avoid… Oops….

And that anger can truly consume us, like a fire, because anger costs more than just a lot of energy. Thankfully, the verse from Proverbs continues and also gives us the solution to get out of that anger:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6 NASB)

The combination of these two things: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding” together with “In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight” is the solution.

And let’s be honest… as humanity, we have made an enormous mess of things…

And are you angry because everything around you is not going the way you hoped, planned, or expected, and you see the world falling apart around you and ask yourself: why? Then, based on what we have discussed above, you know the cause… but there is hope:

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, remain these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:12-13 NASB)

One day we will understand. It may take a little while longer, but it will come! Keep going!