Good Anger, Bad Anger: 8 Tests

Numbers 20:10

Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring water out of this rock?” Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice …”

Moses was a hot-head. I am aware of at least eight times he responded in anger (see below)*. In the end it seems to have brought him unstuck. Anger certainly helped him to be a great leader but it also hurt his leadership.

There are two challenges with anger as I experience it. What fuels it and what comes of it? I think of it as anger inputs and outputs.

Anger Inputs. Anger can be wrong from the start. Sometimes the thing that makes me angry is not right. I might be thinking too much about myself or focused on something that is really small or just misinformed about what is truly the case. If I start wrong, the whole thing is wrong.

Here are four ways I try to test my anger inputs:

• My Mentor. Can I image Jesus getting angry about this? What would it look like if he did?
• Reversal. If the tables were turned, would I accept someone else being similarly angry with me?
• Power. Whose loss of power is at stake here? Mine, my group, my tradition? Or the underdog, the weak, and the needy?
• Self. Am I really just being selfish?

Anger Outputs. Anger can go wrong along the way. I might start out all right, but then anger makes me do something wrong. I over-react or I fail to read the situation correctly and take a bad action. I speak too quickly or too harshly. I act without love.

Four ways I try to test my anger outputs:

• Pause. Have I taken enough time for reflection between my angry impulse and my angry response?
• Feelings. Am I personally hurt? Is my thinking clouded by wounded emotions?
• Future. Will the action I am contemplating bring long term justice or injustice? For whom? At what cost?
• God. Will the action I am contemplating please God? Will it serve God’s Kingdom?

Good anger has both good inputs and good outputs. It has righteous reasons and results and therefore helps me live a more Godly life. Good anger is anger without sin, anger that is slow and anger that gives no ground to evil. (Eph. 4:26-27)

Moses' Anger

On most occasions Moses’ anger was good. It usually mirrored the hurts and hopes of God. When he stormed out of Pharaoh’s palace he was acting out the displeasure of God. And when he broke the Commandment Tablets in the presence of the golden calf he was displaying God’s heart (Ex. 11:8, 32:19).

But Moses crossed a line in the desert of Zin. He got frustrated and acted foolishly putting himself in the spotlight instead of God. He called the people “rebels” and then God declared him a rebel. Bad-anger cost Moses his ticket into the Promised Land (Numb. 20:10-12, 24; Deut. 32:51; Ps. 106:32-33).

Anger is a powerful emotion. It can do good, it can do bad. It can motivate God’s work or make us blind to it (Mk. 3:5, 11:12-19; Lk 15:28). If its input and output is righteous it can do an eternity of good. But if the reason and the result of anger is anything else – if it is really man’s anger – then expect only trouble (James 1:19-20).

Questions

• How do you control anger? How do you keep it righteous?
• Do you have a story of "good anger" serving a good purpose?

*Here are eight examples of Moses’ anger: He murders an Egyptian (Ex. 2); storms out of Pharaoh’s presence “hot with anger” (Ex. 11:8); goes off at the Israelites for not listening to his instructions (Ex. 11:8); smashes the stone tablets when he sees the golden calf (Ex. 32:19); gets angry about a failed tabernacle ritual and then changes his mind when he hears Aaron out (Lev. 10:16, 20); gets livid when his right to lead is unfairly challenged (Numb. 16:15); fumes at the army officers for not following orders (Numb. 31:14); gets annoyed at everyone’s grumbling and makes it personal losing privilege with God (Numb. 20:10-12).