Anger Management

Nearly every dinnertime at the Glenn household is not only a time of feeding our faces/bodies, but also a time of feeding our souls. We typically read a portion of Scripture and work on memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism. We’re up to question 30 in the Catechism. Periodically, we’ll dispense with one or both of these items and discuss a topic of spiritual and/or material importance.

On Monday night, September 30, we discussed anger. I didn’t tell the kids what we were going to discuss, I simply started by telling them a true story about two men I knew from my work that got really angry while checking out of a hotel in Las Vegas because they thought they were not being treated with the preferential treatment they deserved as frequent visitors to the hotel. For 5-10 minutes, I stood and listened to these grown men make nasty comments and generally act like big babies. I told the kids, I tried real hard not to laugh and I certainly didn’t look around at other people because that would have surely made me laugh.

These guys looked ridiculous. Their anger was a great example of how “stupid” a person looks to others when they get angry.

I asked the question, “Is it ever okay to be angry.” Wheels started turning. Initially, the answer was no, but then the lovely and gracious Mrs. Glenn mentioned a Bible verse that says something like, “Be angry but do not sin.” That got the wheels turning even more.

One of the kids decided it was okay to get angry if someone is doing something wrong. That made some sense. But consider the fact that Christ hardly ever got angry at people even though they were doing wrong all the time.

I then asked the question, “Is it wrong to get angry when people treat you badly or do something wrong to you?” Clint answered “no,” meaning it was not okay to get angry when people treat you wrongly. I agreed.

I next asked them, “Why do we get angry when someone treats us wrongly?” The simple answer is that we believe we deserve better than we are being treated. We think the other person is not giving us the respect we deserve. Or it is just outright selfishness. “I want them to do this and they are not doing it, therefore, I’m angry with them.”

There isn’t a situation I can think of where getting angry with someone for the way they treat YOU is acceptable. I’d be curious if anyone can come up with one.

So when IS it acceptable to get angry? It seems to me that the example Christ gave is probably the best. When people mistreat others or God, then it is a righteous anger and acceptable.

By this time the kids were angry with me for talking so long about it so we finished the topic and moved on.