ANGER! 5

Angry people tend to justify or suppress their anger rather than deal with it. Moses seemed to handle this issue well. When he got angry, he expressed his anger to the Lord and seemed to be able to leave it there. That ability served him well until near the end. Something happened that allowed the anger to fester and grow inside of him until a poor rock received the brunt of his frustration. Perhaps it was the years of being the focus of his people’s discontent. Perhaps the death of his sister was the final straw. Whatever it was, the only voice he could hear was that of his anger.

I grew up in a home where it was not okay to be angry. When anger was expressed, it was usually done in an explosive, frightening manner. Of course, that’s what happens when anger is suppressed. It builds and builds until there is an explosion. As a result, I never gave myself permission to be angry. I remember what an insight it was when I began recognizing some of my feelings as actually being anger. The next step was to get over the need to constantly justify to myself and others the feelings I had. Healing began in learning to recognize anger as a sign that something inside me or in my world was out of balance. What I learned was that anger of itself is neither good nor bad. It simply is. The key lies in what is done with the anger. What I still work on is turning the anger over to the Lord so that I can use it to help me find where the imbalance is and receive the grace to deal with it.

What finally undid Moses was an inability to handle the constant criticism. He certainly took more than his share of criticism for forty years. Amazingly he always seemed to be able to remember that Israel’s issues were with God and not him. Still it was hard to keep separate what was personal and what belonged to God, especially when the mob wanted to stone him (Num 14:10).

Criticism usually identifies places where we can learn and grow, even when given by an enemy. Unless we are ill mannered or resentful, we tend not to make our criticism of others personal. The same is true of others when they criticize us. However, criticism becomes deadly when the judgmental voice inside our own heads extends a loud “amen” to the criticism we hear. From there it goes on to use that criticism to affirm what sorry excuses for human beings we are.

Taking hits from those two directions will finally lead to self-destruction or a fierce self-preservation. For self-preservation one can easily drop into a childish self-pity that comforts itself by attacking the criticizers. The anger can no longer be suppressed. Some take on a pessimistic world view. Fearing confrontation, others withdraw from their critics leaving them to figure out what they have done wrong. Gossip, envy, slander, and fear grow in this fertile ground. Branding our perceived enemies as unfair, spiteful, insensitive and the like, we find ourselves, like Moses, standing before the rock with his rod in hand, cursing them as rebels against God and a blight on our lives (Num 20:10).