Charting the Course: Anger

By Charles Scott
The emotion that most Americans are expressing currently is rage. People are angry about bank bailouts. People are angry about corporate takeovers in one industry while others are left alone. People are really angry about AIG. I have learned that anger breeds anger.

Jack Welch wrote recently about rage, “Rage isn’t healing. It’s polarizing.” Welch goes to cite a few rage-busters: Tiger Woods is back on the golf course, precious family members will be graduating from high school or college in a few weeks, and, of course, baseball is back!

God created us with the emotion of anger, and on many occasions the Bible records that God was angry. Psalm 7:11 states that He is angry with the wicked every day. We have to agree that anger is not evil in and of itself. Anger is an emotion of conception. It will either birth a righteous action (Christ becoming our salvation) or it will birth offense to the nature and character of God. God’s anger is birthed from the nature of purity, holiness and displeasure with sin. But what makes us angry?

It is usually a feeling resulting from some type of injury either done or perceived, and if perceived, that is just as real as if actually done. It is almost always the case that when anger arises then the mouth starts in motion. Proverbs 22:24 warns us, “Make no friendship with an angry man.” Jesus said in Matthew 5:22 that anger without cause warrants judgment. Paul gives the qualities of leadership in Titus 1:7 as one who is not soon angry. And we are given the charge to not allow the sun to set on our wrath. (Ephesians 4:26)

How we handle our emotions will define us as leaders in the Kingdom; the most dangerous is anger and the most definitive.