Why are you angry?

“What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it.” James 4:1-2

Think of a time that you were really Angry. Maybe someone betrayed your trust, or you missed out on an opportunity that should have been yours. Or possibly you lost something that your really needed, or someone treated you unjustly. In situations like those you probably found someone you could talk to about the situation and they agreed with you wholeheartedly that what should have been yours was not. But what happens when you feel those same feelings of anger about something and no one is there to justify your feelings? Or worse, the people you turn to don’t support your feeling of Anger? And now you’re questioning yourself and the validity of your emotions. Why are you Angry?

The only thing worse than being angry is not really knowing why. It’s a feeling that is so easy to explain when it happens, but when it comes to justifying it, that’s another story completely. Anger is a reactionary emotion and not usually a root one. What does that mean? It means that when you’re feeling angry, most times it’s reacting to not being able to act on the emotion you felt first. Afraid, Embarrassed, Betrayed, Jealousy, Abandoned, and Threatened are just a few of the emotions we feel when Anger comes in to fight the battle on our behalf and take attention away from what’s really going on. Anger is a defender.

I am a defender of my loved ones. And my family and friends can tell you that I never let them go into battle alone. Whatever they are facing that’s too much for them, I am there ready to fight alongside them and sometimes in their place. You don’t know how many times I’ve heard “they can speak for themselves.” It took me a long time to realize that statements like that don’t have to mean that someone is taking advantage of my loves. What it really means is that they won’t be strong enough to get through it if I don’t let them learn how to fend for themselves. Anger can behave just like me. It’s ready to come in and fight the fight to make sure the coast is clear and that the other “weaker” emotions don’t have to show their faces so they can be dealt with properly.

Facing emotions that don’t feel good is hard. It means opening up to the realities of being fragile, vulnerable, and less than perfect. It means letting people know that they’ve hurt us and not knowing what they will do with the information. It means letting your guard down and actually feeling things that never feel good. In the Bible, James points this out candidly to the people by forcing them to face the reasons they are trying to go to war. (James 4:1-2) They aren’t readily justified in wanting to fight their enemies. They are jealous, and see the only way to get what they want is by showing anger and taking it by force. The entire time they are just afraid to trust God to give them the desires of their hearts, so they let Anger take control and just make a huge mess. We’re no different. We want our fragile emotions to go away and instead of asking God to give us peace, or seeking the help of a therapist or counselor to better understand our feelings, we just let Anger run around reeking havoc. And in the end we just leave a huge mess, and those original root emotions are still sitting there unaddressed.

When you hide emotions like Fear and Embarrassment and Jealousy they don’t just go away. They sit and they fester and they take control in a way that ends up being detrimental to a positive outlook on life. And when we let Anger run around just fighting all the battles, eventually it becomes the strongest emotion we have and takes over in situations where it is definitely not needed. So how do we combat that? How do we tag team Anger out and let the other emotions run their fair share of the race? You have to ask yourself the hard question: Why am I angry? What am I REALLY feeling? When you find the strength to truly face what’s going on inside you, life becomes a little bit easier to live.

So the next time someone cuts you off in traffic and you find yourself angrier than you should be (I used an example I’m sure we ALL can relate to) as yourself: Why am I angry? Chances are your frustrated after a long day, or nervous about being late for the 3rd time this week, or maybe you’re anxious about your life and here goes one more thing you just can’t control. Face those hard emotions and take back control. Tag Anger out the game and give it a chance to root for your success from the bench.