I will never forget the first time I witnessed a real-life toddler tantrum. My two-year-old and I were playing outside when I told him it was time to go in for lunch. What happened next caught me by surprise. He quickly melted down like a marshmallow on a hot stovetop.

As I watched, mouth agape, he dramatically threw himself onto the garage floor, arms flailing, loudly voicing his discontent. Taken aback, I froze, unsure how to proceed (and he wouldn’t have heard me over the din of his wailing anyway). So, I sat on the bumper of my car, looked out at the street (hoping no neighbors were passing by), and tried to figure out how to handle it.

Thankfully, starved of an audience, the tantrum quickly lost its allure, and my little boy gave up the fight, miraculously composing himself in short order. We went inside for lunch and it was never spoken of again until now.

Sometimes, that long-ago scene comes to mind when I see anger displayed in myself or others. If only we as adults could regain composure as quickly as toddlers and respond well to the powerful feelings evoked when we don’t get our way.

Anger is a confusing and challenging emotion. On the surface, it’s simply a flashing red indicator that our boat is rocking, and we want it to stop; such a warning can be a good thing. As one of the many emotions God designed into our beings, it makes us aware of problems within ourselves or the world that might require action. However, it is often misleading, supplanting more elusive or subtle feelings like sadness, guilt, or embarrassment. Many times, it is the true culprit behind what we might label irritation, criticism, or frustration.

It is not wrong to feel anger – but what we do with it tends to be unhealthy, unwise, and unloving. Whether it arises as a primary emotion or secondary to another feeling, our response to “seeing red” is rarely helpful. Our reactions can lead to relational, reputational (think Travis Kelce, Super Bowl ‘24), and even physical damage to ourselves (thanks to the cortisol it releases in our bodies) or others through verbal or physical violence. It can cause us to drive aggressively, criticize someone, or fume loudly. But it is not always loud: rage can also show up as cold, stony silence. 

Sadly, anger has been flaring up everywhere lately. It pervades modern life, ready to erupt any moment like popcorn five minutes deep in hot oil. And it is not just spilling out over world events or relational conflicts but also seemingly minor things. I see it in impatient drivers, eye-rolling store clerks, and people arguing online or in person. Sometimes, when I see these behaviors, I realize I am looking in a mirror.

What, exactly, is at the root of all this anger? 

The Bible says we fight and quarrel because of the desires that battle within us. We covet, argue, and even kill to get what we want but do not have. We may not be murderers in the typical sense of the word, but most of us have been party to a relationship that has been murdered or harmed by angry words. Maybe we were even the murderer. We can rage like a two-year-old who doesn’t want to stop playing to eat lunch.

In his excellent book, Humility, pastor Jonathan Murray says, “All wretchedness of which this world has been the scene, all its wars and bloodshed among the nations, all its selfishness and suffering, all its vain ambitions and jealousies, all its broken hearts and embittered lives, with all its daily unhappiness, have their origin in what this cursed pride – our own or that of others – has brought upon us. It is pride that made redemption necessary.” (pp. 23-24)

Ouch.

As much as we want to believe our anger is out of concern for things important to God, we often operate from a place of self-centered, human-centric desire. We become mad when something precious to us is threatened: our comfort, power, money, success, or reputation. Even when anger arises over something unjust, like a moral wrong or criminal action, our responses are rarely as good or selfless as we would like to believe. The Bible puts it this way, “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

One startling illustration of this is in the New Testament when the disciple Peter felt angry after learning that a perfect, innocent person he loved was to suffer and be executed. Jesus’s death was the worst injustice in the history of humanity. If ever there was a reason for someone to express justifiable anger, Jesus’s impending death fit the bill. But Jesus responded to Peter’s angry outburst by saying, “Get behind me, Satan!” He called Peter a stumbling block and said he didn’t have in mind the things of God but the things of man. Yikes. That causes me to question whether my reaction when someone cuts me off in traffic produces the righteousness of God.

Anger does not tend to drive us to God or humility. Maybe that’s why the Bible says so much about it. Looking under the rock of anger frequently turns up a feeling of superiority – whether in our desires or solutions to the problem at hand. Lord, it’s hard to be humble when we’re mad. Andrew Murray was not wrong.

Still, God gave us the emotion of anger for a reason. What are we supposed to do with it? What did Jesus do with it? In his book, The Emotional Life of our Lord, B.B. Warfield says that the actions that sprang from Jesus’s anger were only and always merciful and loving. (pp. 75-76) Even when exhausted, hungry, interrupted, and justified, Jesus didn’t rant on social media about how stupid and hopeless everyone was. He moved toward the perpetrators with wisdom that could save them. Ultimately, He died for the perpetrators. For all of us perpetrators.

How often does my anger lead me to do something loving or merciful for the perceived offender? Hmmm. Almost never.

Evaluating the causes of our anger and how we respond when we experience it is not easy. The week I wrote this, I got mad at someone who almost side-swiped my car while they were texting. In a world chock full of moments like this and much, much worse, how can anger help lead us to Christian growth and maturity?

Maybe the first step could be using anger as a warning to check our position in relation to God. A flashing red light that points not to how right and justified we feel but to the fact that something is happening that necessitates turning to God in humility.

Then, instead of allowing anger to spew out at the perceived offender (or anyone who will listen), it could be a catalyst driving us to the action of prayer.

And from the overflow of prayer and wise discernment, we could practice directing our anger toward acts of love and mercy rather than hate and retribution, to trusting God rather than ourselves to bring justice.

If God gave us anger as a gift to point us to Him, I can understand how it is good. When we see the red of rage, we can remember the red blood of Christ that was shed to heal every angry heart that receives Him. Maybe that’s why red is also the color of love.

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Murray, Andrew. (2001). Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness. Bloomington, MN: Bethany House Publishers.

Warfield, B.B.. (2022). The Emotional Life of Our Lord. Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

Photo credit: Jacek Dylag on Unsplash