A Letter to the Man Who Is Angry

Brother,

You're not an angry man. You're a man carrying something that only comes out one way.

There's a difference, and it matters more than you think.

Somewhere back there you learned that fear was a liability and grief was a luxury and neither one had a job to do. Anger had a job. Anger got you through the shift. Anger got you off the floor. Anger got you moving when nothing else would. So everything started coming out as anger, because anger was the only one still on duty.

Now the fuse is short and you couldn't tell anybody when it got cut. Your kid asks a normal question in a normal voice and you hear something else in it. Then you watch their face change, and you hate yourself before the door is even shut.

It's not the anger that's killing you. It's what's underneath it, and how long you've left it down there.

I'm not writing this from the far side of it. I still have days.

Here's the part I want you to sit with. The first thing God ever said to an angry man was a question.

Cain's face fell, and the LORD asked him, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?” (Genesis 4:6). Not knock it off. A question, and Cain had to stand there in it.

Then God told him the truth. Sin was crouching at the door, its desire was for him, and he would have to master it. Not manage it. Master it.

Cain never answered the question. He went out to the field instead, and his brother died there.

God made the man look straight at himself, then put it on him. Both halves. Skip either one and you end up in the field.

Paul doesn't tell you to go numb either. “Be angry, and yet do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). Read it again. He put the word anger inside a command. Some things ought to make a man angry, and the man who feels nothing when his kid gets hurt isn't holy. He's dead.

But read five verses down before you get comfortable. “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you” (Ephesians 4:31). Same letter, same word. Paul isn't contradicting himself, he's separating two things. Anger at what is actually wrong has a job. Anger that moves in and starts paying rent does not. That's why he says don't let the sun go down on it, and don't give the devil the opening.

So answer God's question. Not out loud, not in front of anybody. Just answer it.

What are you actually angry about? Go under the thing that set you off today and keep going until you hit something that hurts instead of something that burns. That one is the real one. That's what you bring Him.

And if it has already gone past words. If you've put your hands on somebody, or the people in your house get quiet when they hear you come in, then this letter isn't enough and you already know it.

Tell someone today. Not this week. A pastor, a counselor, somebody who won't let you explain it away. If she's afraid of you, her safety comes before your reputation and before your marriage looking fine on Sunday. That might mean you're the one who sleeps somewhere else for a while. There may be consequences you can't talk your way out of. Take them. That isn't the end of you. It's the first honest thing you've done in a long time.

God hasn't written you off for having a temper. You're responsible for what's under it, and the part of it that was sin was paid for on the cross like everything else. You don't have to haul that into tomorrow too.

Tomorrow, one sentence to the person you've been short with. Not a speech. “I've been angry, and it isn't about you.”

Then go be quiet and answer the question. Psalm 4 gives the same instruction: “Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still.”

I'll be doing the same.

— Jake