“Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly,” Proverbs 14:29. Anger is not good or evil. The Webster’s dictionary describes it as “rage” or “passionate displeasure”. It is a disposition rather than an action. Anger can be justified or unjustified.
God is always justified in His anger. In Jeremiah 44:8, He asks the Israelite nation, “Why do you provoke me to anger with the works of your hands…?” when they were making and worshipping idols.
Anger is always the result of an imagined or real injustice. Regardless, it is still anger. At the moment of our anger, we are also at the moment of choice. “Choose life and you will live…” We have an opportunity to make use of our weaponry or to receive from God’s arsenal of grace.
It is important for us to understand, that anger, not submitted to our Original Creator, becomes a deadly force. This is true even for those who are justified in their anger. Every human being has been assaulted, at some point, by the working of sin against them; and therefore every human being has a very good reason to be angry. But none of us are independently free to take vengeance. “Repay no evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’,” Romans 12:17-19.
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