(contd)
It is also important to note that His jealousy is particularly aroused against His [u]own[/u] people - the ones with whom He has a relationship, desires a relationship and intends to maintain that relationship in the condition He esteems it should be enjoyed.... ie those closest to Him. Likewise, we tend to be our most openly irritable and irritated with those we know best.
I think the possibility of this has to be acknowledged. If God Himself can be so angry there is no remedy but the expression of it, then finite humans may well, also, fail to contain theirs.
But, the expression of anger brings a kind of comfort to the person who was angry:
Esther 2:1
After these things, [u]when the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased[/u], he remembered Vashti...
Here, God does not intend to hold back His wrath...
Ezekiel 5:13
Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, [u]and I will be comforted[/u]: and they shall know that I the LORD have spoken [i]it[/i] in my zeal, when I have accomplished my fury in them.
Ezekiel 13:15
Thus will I accomplish My wrath on the wall ...
[accomplish = complete, or spend]
Of course, we are told not to take revenge into our own hands, in Romans 12:19, but to leave room for God to avenge us. This strongly implies that it is reasonable to be angry, and it is balanced against Romans 13:4. which gives permission for 'wrath' to be executed on God's behalf, on evil-doers.
It is also worth accepting the radical truth that the expression of God's anger also consoles Him somewhat, as king Ahasuerus also was consoled. To deny this, is to misread the angry person in your life, who may be so angry all the time, that the only time they can be calm, is by giving themself permission to express their anger also, like a valve in a pressure cooker. Indeed, this is what they may feel like, if the cause(s) of their anger have never been acknowledged.
My anger was related to having been humiliated, way back and many times. One's natural instinct to spontaneously right oneself after such incidents, draws on an instinctive pride to keep trying to be ok - which God Himself has given us. He has also given us the ability to go numb, when internalised pain has been so longstanding that it is not possible to retiain knowledge of it consciously, without losing one's mind. Naturally (again), one strives for sanity, and He graciously permits this choice.
It is a huge problem for angry people, who have long lost any way of defining the cause of their anger, to find themself in Christian circles where there is a culture of condemning anger [i]per se[/i]. In this case, it will [i]never[/i] be ok for them to remember - the stage which for me came [i]after[/i] the numbness had begun to thaw out. It is true that I had, by then, experienced a huge reduction in external pressures, such that internal pressures could begin to draw attention to themselves.
This is interesting:
Ecclesiast. 7:3
Sorrow [i]is[/i] better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better[/u].
{Sorrow: or, Anger}
In a nutshell, I'm suggesting there is something important beyond the anger itself, such as a provokation to understand. It may be like the thorn in the lion's paw, but buried deep inside.
I also know there can be evil spirits which show themselves in outbursts of unreaonable anger, which may not be related to inner wounds. But if there [i]are[/i] inner wounds, then such spirits may also have a foothold in the life and will lose this foothold if the internal pain is addressed.
However, like the thorn in the paw, approaching it in such a way as to cause no more pain may require not only courage and patience, but spiritual insight and faith that God is leading and can bring healing. And, a significant network of practical support both for those who help, and for the person who needs the help, may be needed.
It would be tempting to make the anger the centre of attention, and it must be, to some extent, initially; but while a certain level of control may be required from the angry person - such as to develop anger management techniques for the benefit of those who must endure the outbursts - I believe this should not be overlaid with condemnation for their underlying anger.
It is probably going to be a work of the art of not shouting back, to help the person to hear themselves behaving unreasonably.
It is a different challenge, to create an enviroment in which all steps have been take to protect the vulnerable from further hurt (by the anger), at the same time as maintaining enough pressure for the person to begin to hear how she sounds to others.
For myself, once I'd realised just how much anger I was carrying around all the time, it was only a matter of time before I would have to give it to the Lord. This giving took some courage, but by then I was desperate because I couldn't keep holding it in.
But, I had been quite shocked at this discovery about myself. I had had no idea I was [i]complicit[/i] in carrying this much anger - let alone the pain of containing it!
On the day that I gave it to the Lord, a truly miraculous process began, in which I could feel that He was doing something in my depths, but I was silenced by being able to 'feel' it all at the same time. Slowly, over a period of several hours, He took it all, and I was free. Now (it turned out), I could respond with a normal level of appropriately directed displeasure when this was necessary, and the rest of the time I was in peace. There were other healings to come, also, but not from anger any more.
I think the main thing I would like you to take from these posts, is that unless there is an acceptance that anger is a natural response in certain situations, [u]given by God as part of human make-up[/u], any ways of addressing [i]causes[/i] of anger meanningfuly, remain out of reach.
There [i]are[/i] ways of dealing with angry people, beginning with giving permission for them to be angry.... but [i]not[/i] to be angry the way they have expressed it hitherto which is undermining to their testimony and socially unacceptable by any standard.
There is, though, some safety for some people in laying their anger on others - that is, in turning it outwards - because it enables the demonstrated amount of anger to be assessed.
Whereas, if it is all turned inwards, the severity of the need may be both invisible and ignorable, including being damaging to the one carrying it, and encouraging also, [i]their denial[/i].
