Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, "Take these out of here, and stop making my Father's house a marketplace."So, is anger ever justified? Yes, in certain situations it is. Jesus was certainly justified in his anger over merchants setting up shop in the temple area. It is entirely appropriate to get angry over injustices that are done to us and others.
However, there is another kind of anger. This anger is the unreasonable desire for vengeance. We've all been hurt, annoyed, or in some other way upset by other people. We've all felt the need to get back at the person who hurt us. Anger builds up pressure within us. It clouds our perspective. It just keeps building and building until it finally explodes like a balloon. Anger has a tendency to get the best of us.
People who know me (at least, people outside my immediate family) would think that I don't struggle much with anger. I'm generally calm, quiet, and level-headed in my interactions with others. But I do struggle with anger. I see my anger manifesting itself in two different ways.
The first is through my lack of patience. My kids get the brunt of this anger most of the time. They're loud, they bicker with each other, they don't do what I tell them to do. They create messes in the house. I have a very short fuse for them acting like....well....acting like kids. So, I snap. I yell at them and punish them for being kids. My anger here is certainly not justified and I need to learn greater patience.
The second manifestation of my anger is through people criticizing me, taking advantage of me, or hurting me in any way. I had a co-worker a number of years back at a different job who took advantage of me on a regular basis. She was manipulative, self-centered, and basically stole income from me many times. (The job was a commissioned based sales job, and we were supposed to be supporting each other in sales, not competing with each other.) Needless to say, this made me very angry. And on a few occasions I blew up at her, screaming and yelling at her in the middle of the office. Thankfully, I had enough resolve to not blow up at her in the presence of clients.
So, was my anger in either of these situations justified? In the first situation, with my kids, certainly not. My lack of patience is never justification for losing my temper with the kids. The second situation, however, is a bit more fuzzy. Stealing income from me could certainly be grounds for justified anger, but was it really justified, and if so, did I handle it appropriately? If it was justified, then I certainly did not handle it appropriately. I let my anger get the best of me. The situation could have been handled by better means.
To be honest, I don't think my anger at my co-worker was justified. Was she hurting me, or others, by doing what she did? Sure, she took a bit of income from me, but really, not enough to pose a threat to supporting my family. She was hurting herself far more than she was hurting me. She was damaging her relationship with me and the other office employees through her actions. To be honest, my anger was hurting myself more than she was hurting me. I let my anger control me and cloud my vision.
Does that mean that I should have continue to let her walk all over me? Certainly not. I could have handled the issues I had with her much more diplomatically. I could have spoken to her out of love and told her patiently that I did not want to be taken advantage of. If that didn't work, I could have documented what she did and how I tried to resolve it and then escalated it up the chain of command. Doing that would have been far more effective than screaming and yelling at her.
So, what's the antidote to anger? I already mentioned one--patience. We need to be patient with people and realize that they are not perfect. We expect people to be patient with us. We should do the same for others.
Forgiveness is the second antidote for anger. We need to be willing to forgive those that hurt us. one of the most difficult things to do is to face someone who hurt you and tell them that you forgive them. Yet it is the best way to release the pressure that the anger is building up inside of us.