Righteous Anger? Maybe...

James 1:19

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

James 4:1-4

4 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? ² 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. ³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. ⁴ You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

For some people, anger comes as a quick flash of temper that rises faster than a flash flood in a narrow canyon. For others, anger presents itself as a slow, simmering heat that almost never shows itself above the surface. Both, according to James 1:20, fail to lead down paths of righteousness.

What do we do, then, when we are wronged? Can’t I be righteously angry at someone who wrongs me as long as I ‘let it go’ sooner rather than later (see Eph. 4:26-27)? Isn’t anger, like what Jesus displayed in the temple with the money changers (see Matt. 21:12-13), sometimes required to ‘produce the righteousness that God requires’? The answer to all of these questions is a highly qualified ‘Maybe.’

The two passages quoted above give me some serious questions to consider before I might consider any anger I might feel is ‘righteous’…

1. Have I listened (‘quick to hear’) and fully comprehended the situation and the relevant issues before becoming angry?
2. Has part of my listening involved restraining my desire to argue, trying to make sure my point-of-view is fully heard (‘slow to speak’)?
3. Has my anger resulted slowly as I’ve listened and, even after giving others the benefit of any doubts, become convinced that there is something seriously wrong and dishonoring to God in the situation (‘slow to anger’)?
4. If I’ve come to the slow and considered conclusion that my anger is justified, can I honestly say that my own sinful passions and desires for things like pleasure, recognition, power, comfort, or convenience are not significant factors helping to justify my anger (see James 4:1-4 above)?

In my experience, my anger is rarely ‘righteous’ and almost always results because someone has acted or something has happened that does not fit my expectations of how I want my life to go. At root, I get mad because I feel some ‘right’ of mine to a pleasant life has been violated and I want everyone else to be sorry about that (or at least as miserable as I am)!

How can we have this attitude when we reflect on the fact that, “while we were enemies [of God] we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom. 5:10)? When we are wronged, we must forgive (Matt. 18:21-22), not angrily demand apologies. When circumstances collide to make our lives difficult, we must not take it out on everyone around us or shake our fists at God. Instead, we must “know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8.28).

As one who is not unfamiliar with of a quickening pulse as anger begins to rise, I pray regularly that God will give me the grace to love deeply, forgive freely, and to ‘count it all joy’ (James 1:2-3)!