We must guard against being controlled by any anger, our own or other people’s. I considered this when I accidentally misread Psalm 4:4a as “Don’t sin by letting your anger control you.” When I re-read my notes, I realized the word “your” was not in that verse. While I fight my own anger, I might forget how often I’ve let my fear of other people’s anger control me. Please join me as I examine the control we may give others when we fear their anger.
My daughters quickly remind me when I am being too brusque with them. They notice my annoyance long before it turns into a greater anger, and they tell me I need to be more patient with them. They are right, and I thank God they hold me accountable. If I do not heed their reminders, I may grow very angry and hurt their feelings with my raised voice or curt words. Because I love them dearly and know they need a kind and gentle mom, I grieve any time I cross the line from annoyance into stronger anger. I never want my frustrations to turn into anger that could control me. But when I misread that verse and then correctly read it to only say “Don’t sin by letting anger control you,” I remembered other people’s anger and admitted to myself that I have let others control me when I avoided their anger. My husband has a temper (at times volatile) and at times I have foolishly avoided asking for his help or avoided telling him something he did not want to do but needed to do. This ended up hurting me, especially by delaying something that needed to happen.
Proverbs 29:25 warns me “The fear of man {humans} will be a snare.” In my fear of other people’s anger I have done more work than I should do. I have not demanded unjust businesses do what is right. I have avoided confronting people who were unkind. The list could go on about wrongs I tolerated when I let my fear of other people’s anger control me. And when I avoid other people’s anger, I also avoid them. I may hurt them by my avoidance, or hurt myself, or even become angry over the injustice I wrongly tolerate (and God never tells us to tolerate sin—remember Jesus told the woman at the well he did not condemn her, but also for her to go and sin no more, John 8:10b-11.)
God gives us a natural sense of justice. We want to protect others, even if we are the ones who are treated unjustly. God created us to yearn for justice. And God calls us to confront others when they sin. In Matt. 18:15 God gives the first step in confronting fellow believers who sin against us; we are to tell that believer what he or she did to us. If we don’t do that, we risk our festering anger, as we see in Ephs.4:26-27, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger lest you give the devil a foothold.” By evening we may feel angry but not have the opportunity to control the person who offended us. We don’t have to call him or her, since it is too late. But we can admit to ourselves that we feel angry. We can ask God to show us what we are thinking in case our thoughts are amiss. If the Holy Spirit confirms our thoughts are right, we can tell God about our anger and ask him to help us calm our anger, forgive our offenders, and then ask Him to comfort us. Then we can go tot sleep with a forgiving heart, not an enraged one. We can talk to the offender the next day.
The anger we deny will always control us, because we cannot bring it to God for his soothing, and healing. Yet too many women and girls insist they do not feel angry about offenses others commit against them. They believe this denial is “nice.” But a friend once said that just anger and a firm confrontation, even a rebuke, can be the kindest thing we can do to another person. Being “nice,” and denying a massive offense is unkind. I refer to massive offenses and not minor annoyances. When the Holy Spirit rules our hearts we learn to differentiate between minor annoyances and massive ones. So we must resist this false belief of “niceness” that denies the truth of other people’s extreme offenses against us.
And if the offender is a scary person, we may need help to follow the second step God gives for confronting a fellow believer who sins against us (Matt.18:16) by bringing along another believer to confront that person. If that fails, God sends a third step in verse 17 to take the offender to the church, and in the same verse, if that step fails, God says that we must no longer associate with that believer.
When possible we can use those steps with unbelievers. But whether or not the offender apologizes, we can express our anger in a righteous way and get it out. We must not let our fear of other people’s angry control us anymore. God can help us overcome our denial of our anger over the other person’s anger and offense. This will help us to not let our fear of the other person’s anger control us. Then we won’t fall into anger of our own as a result.
Psalm 4:4a reminds us to not let anger (ours and other people’s) control us, because only the Holy Spirit should control us. Thanks for joining us in this week’s post. I pray we’ve encouraged you and admonished you to seek God’s guidance so anger won’t control you. May you have a blessed week!