Daughter of Thunder Part 1 - Naming the Anger

Be angry... but do not sin.  That's tricky.  In the midst of painful emotions, I've found it very difficult to discern between the two sometimes.  

There are two different forms of anger - healthy and unhealthy.  This would be determined by why we get angry.  In scripture, it's referred to as righteous vs. sinful anger.  

Examples of healthy or righteous anger would be: injustice, wickedness, sin (in general), disrespect, etc.  We are supposed to be angry about things that make God angry.  Through Jesus, we have the spiritual DNA of God, we are His children.  Therefore, it is normal and natural to be upset and angry over things that also make Him upset and angry.  

Examples of unhealthy or sinful anger would be: inconveniences, not getting our own way, not getting what we selfishly want.  Anger that comes from a place of selfishness is not of God.  It is of the enemy.  I think it is normal and natural for us to get irritated by inconveniences or become disappointed when things don't go the way we would have liked or hoped.  However, when we become actually angry over these things, it's always rooted in selfishness.

What I'm learning through my walk with the Lord and His Word, is that anger, in and of itself, is not bad.  All emotions, in and of themselves, are not bad.  It's a part of who we are.  What becomes a slippery slope is how we respond to those emotions in our actions (or inaction).  What do we do about it?  And even if you're like me and have been co-dependently trained since childhood that you and your emotions were not important, anyway, then what happens is that you do nothing in terms of actions, but the stuffed brewing pot of unhealthy thinking will eventually spill out into everything that you do in life.  

Jesus nicknamed the Apostles James and John "The Sons of Thunder" because of how they responded to their righteous anger.  In Luke, Chapter 9, it describes a moment where Jesus and His disciples were walking through Samaria on their way to Jerusalem.  The Samaritans were not very friendly to Jesus, openly rejecting him.  James and John were very angry because these people had disrespected the Lord, the Messiah.  This anger, in and of itself, was not unhealthy or sinful.  However, their response was.

Luke 9:54-56:

When James and John saw this, they said to Jesus, "Lord, should we call down fire from heaven to burn them up?"  But Jesus turned and rebuked them.  So they went on to another village. (NLT)

I love that even though Jesus rebuked them, he also had a sense of humor about it, giving them the nickname "Sons of Thunder".  Jesus approved of why they were angry... just not their idea of responding to it.  

In codependency, the “why we get angry” oftentimes gets really blurry because other co-dependents/narcissists in our lives have conditioned us to think of their offenses as okay or warranted somehow.  Also, when in an abusive relationship and/or dysfunctional family, none of our feelings are important.  Issues do not get resolved.  People stuck in a sin they refuse to acknowledge or repent of, never change.  Your righteous anger gets labeled as bad, silly or wrong, simply because it challenges a person's hold on sin, and they don't like that.  And because this makes them unhappy and we have been programmed that our sole existence is to make them happy, we don't know how to respond.  But deep down in our hearts, we know it's wrong, it hurts.  Deep down, we know in our hearts that God does not approve of people mistreating us.

Which leads me to this next point.  Righteous anger can and does sometimes come from hurt.  The feeling of anger follows after the feeling of hurt.  Is it wrong to feel hurt?  Of course not.  I believe sin itself breaks God's heart and the fact that He gets angry about it is all through scripture.  However, when codependents feel hurt, especially by people we love, we tend to turn the anger inward and attribute the wrongdoing to our self-worth.  Thus, triggering us to do or say anything to appease the beast and regain that sense of self-worth back.  But by doing so, we ignore or stuff the righteous anger which never goes away because there is no sense of release from it by healthy/righteous actions towards it.  Self-worth also continues to evade us because it is entangled in the offender's acceptance of us... where it does not belong.  

Therefore, it is vitally important that Christian women who struggle with codependency, lean on Christ for discernment through prayer, reading God's Word and fully depending on His grace to do that good work in us and through us.  

Naming the hurt, bringing it to the cross, is the first step towards dealing with the anger in a spiritually healthy way.  The Holy Spirit has brought me to a place where He has cleared the smoke so that I can clearly see (spiritually) why I feel hurt and why it's okay to feel that hurt.  It's okay to come to the throne room of God, your soul battered and bleeding.  I believe our "Abba" Father wants us to.  He wants to bandage me up and heal me.  

Also, taking that hurt and releasing it to God, gives me a sense of moving forward.  That God's got me, cares about me and comforts me... which fills the void that caused the hurts in the first place.

Love in Christ and still striving to be,

Very Kimberly