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You don’t have to be following Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against Amber Heard to know how dangerous anger can be when it’s out of control. We all know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a person’s anger. And we’ve also seen the damage that our own anger has caused.

One of the problems with anger, though, is that you can’t solve it by just shutting it off. Bottling up anger just creates other problems. We let our bitterness simmer inside. We turn passive-aggressive. We become critical, cynical, and pessimistic.

Letting anger loose and bottling anger up are both toxic options, so psychologists encourage people to work at relaxation techniques, calmer approaches, and healthier attitudes. While those are all helpful, there are 4 specific roles that God alone can fill in helping us to deal with our anger in constructive ways.

1. Someone who will hear your anger and still accept you

Anger can be ugly. It brings out the worst in us, whether we’re hurt or just being petty. If you try to unload your anger on someone who’s close to you, they may pull back even if they’re not the one who’s the target of it. It’s just too much for many people. God invites us to bring our anger to Him. The psalms (e.g. Psalm 109) teach us that in prayer, we can talk out our anger with the One who won’t reject us for it. Having a safe place to process our anger helps us avoid holding it in or blasting it out.

2. Someone who will tell you when your anger is unjustified

Just talking through our anger in prayer before God can help. God helps us sort through the anger, though. Just because we’re irritated, it doesn’t mean that we’re right to be mad. I can be annoyed because I’m being selfish or impatient or petty. It’s ideal to have friends who will call us on it when we’re angry for the wrong reasons, but most people aren’t willing to take the risk. Often, just asking whether it’s something God is angry about can help us evaluate our feelings. The Bible can help us understand whether our anger is justified or not.

3. Someone who will get angry for you when your anger is justified

When we’ve been wronged or we see injustice, one of the challenges is feeling alone in dealing with it. Our anger is exacerbated by the weight of trying to handle it ourselves. In the Bible, we meet a God who shares our anger at the injustice in the world. More than that, He invites us to bring our injustices to Him and trust Him to set them right (Romans 12:19). The Bible says that “God is slow to anger” (Psalm 145:8) and we’re glad that He is but knowing that He will take up your offence frees you from its burden.

4. Someone who’s forgiven you when they should be angry at you

As long as we remain fixated on what someone has done to us, we remain locked in our anger. What the person has done won’t go away and there’s little they can do to walk back its impact on us. One of the most powerful influences in healing our anger is feeling the forgiveness of someone who should be angry at us. The Bible presents the story of the God whom humanity has disrespected, disobeyed, and disregarded. He has every right to destroy us in anger, and yet, He comes to us in love and offers us forgiveness. Receiving His forgiveness motivates our own toward others.

In a world like ours, not ever feeling anger isn’t an option. And neither bottling it up nor letting it loose can do much good. The Bible says “Be angry and do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26) and we do that by drawing near to the God who can help us through it.

If this is new to you and you think it’s something you’d like to explore, I’ve written a free, 12-week course called The Unstuck Life that walks you through the essentials of Jesus’ teachings in daily, bite-sized messages that you can read or watch by video. To learn more, go to www.gracebc.ca/getunstuck.

In awe of Him,

Paul