The Anger Train

Feb. 19

Read: James 1:19-21

The Anger Train

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” (v.19,20)

I have a confession to make to you all: I spent a lot of this weekend angry. Angry that things didn’t go the way I planned them. Angry that one of our cars keeps breaking. Angry at traffic as I drove back and forth Friday, then Saturday, then Sunday to a town more than 1 hour away for soccer games. I was just plain angry. I lost my temper with those around me… and made a fool of myself more than once.

It is a weird phenomenon - being angry I mean. There was a part of me that DID NOT want to be angry. I kept telling myself, “Snap out of it. Don’t be this way. Don’t let this stuff get to you.” Just when I would start to feel a little better… BAM! Something else would break or go wrong or simply not go “my way” and I was right back to being angry. Then came the guilt. I started feeling guilt for being angry. The voices in my head said to me, “What kind of Christian are you?!” This made me even more … well… angry.

I can tell you one thing for sure: James is RIGHT. The anger of man never brings about the righteousness of God. (v.19) When you hop aboard the “anger train”, the station that it brings you to is NEVER “God’s righteousness”. When you hop off the anger train, you realize it has brought you someplace you do not want to be! When you read the fruits of the Spirit, you notice that “anger” is NOT one of the things that the Spirit works in us. (cf. Gal. 5:22,23) Simply put, anger may be something we experience, but it is not what we are to hold on to… and it simply is not from the Lord. We cannot wield anger correctly… well… because we are not God. This is why the passage clarifies that it is “man’s anger” or “the anger of man” that we are talking about.

So what is the answer? What do we do when anger sets upon us as the people of God…when we feel anger welling up inside of us? Well, James gives us a couple of helpful pointers. First off, he reminds us of what it is that causes anger and the quarrels and fights that ensue:

“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.” (James 4:1-3)

We need to stop and ask ourselves, what is it that we want that we are not getting? What is it that we think that we deserve that we do not have? This process reveals to us our passions that are at war within us. Sometimes the things we want are GOOD things, but anger is still not going to carry us to them. Sometimes what we want is selfish, arrogant, fleshly, and wrong… and we can see that more clearly when we ask ourselves these probing questions. If you are having problems identifying what it is, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you your motives and passions.

Secondly, James writes this in the scriptures: “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” (v.21) When we find ourselves angry - after asking what it is we want that we are not getting and identifying what it is that is at “war within us” - we then are called to “put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive the implanted word”. You see, as Christ's followers we have a secret weapon in our war against anger. Here is it called “the implanted word”. God has put something in us - “implanted” - that will literally save our souls in the midst of this world we live in. When we are angry, we desperately need something greater than that anger… namely the fruits of the Spirit within us. I forgot that this weekend. I turned to tossing my tools when the car didn’t work. I turned to stewing in my mind while gripping the wheel. I even turned to eating a bunch of junk food! (Like a candy bar and Jolly Ranchers are going to fix my anger…lol) I even tried to “exercise” the anger out of me on a bike ride… this worked a little. Anyway, the real solution came gently from the Lord as he worked me through this process I described above. In the end, I just needed to speak honestly to the Lord about what was happening within me (this is confession) and receive the “implanted word” of the Lord. I had to let go of my own ideas of what I deserved and wanted… and begin to TRUST the Lord and HIS plan. I had to stop thinking that my anger was going to bring me to anyplace else besides ruin. It is time to stop being angry. Maybe my “confession” to you all can help you avoid the “anger train”. Love you guys. - JDP