Anger is not a good thing to experience. Anger interferes with your well-being and capacity to appreciate the goodness of life in many ways.
Here are some of the pronounced ways in which anger affects people:
- Increased heart rate and blood pressure: When you get angry, your body's fight-or-flight response is triggered, releasing stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, which increase your heart rate and blood pressure.
- Difficulty with emotional regulation: People who get angry frequently may have trouble managing a range of emotions, leading to potential overreactions in various situations.
- Impairment in judgement and decision-making: Anger can cloud judgment, leading to rash decisions or actions without considering the consequences.
- Focus on negative thoughts: Anger can cause people to focus excessively on negative experiences or thoughts, which can perpetuate feelings of anger or dissatisfaction.
- Strained relationships: Anger can harm relationships with family, friends, and colleagues if it leads to aggressive behaviours or harsh words
- Aggression: Anger can manifest as verbal or physical aggression, which might include yelling, throwing things, or physical confrontations.
In summary, anger affects us in diverse ways which cover a spectrum of categories ranging from physical effects, emotional effects, cognitive effects, social effects, and behavioural effects. This is why outbursts of wrath demand keen anger management skills.
In Context
The question we are dealing with in this week's episode of Questions That God Asks is taken from the first family, the family of Adam. Let us read it as written in the good book:
So the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it." NKJV Genesis 4:6-7
The two brothers, Cain and Abel, brought their offerings before God. Abel's offering met divine approval while Cain's did not. This is the reason Cain got angry and his countenance fell. In an attempt to help him diagnose the situation and understand what he needed to understand, God asked Cain a simple, straightforward, yet deep and sobering question—why are you angry?
If Cain ever cared he should have given this question sufficient thought. His honest response musings would lead to a response like: "I am angry because I am jealous of my younger brother because his gifts were accepted and mine were not accepted." Such a reflection would have led him to detect the right problem—his gifts. Instead, he brooded in anger and made an impaired judgement.
Because of what he did next—killing his brother—we can conclude that he resolved that his brother and not his offering was the problem. So he ended up solving the wrong problem—his brother. He also thought to himself that he would punish God by killing the one who was willing to worship Him in truth and spirit and pushing Him to remain with the one who cared less about God's will (himself). Do you see how bad anger can be?
Life Application
Have you ever realised that God has no problem with us getting angry?
Then He said to the disciples, "It is impossible that no offences should come, but woe to him through whom they do come! NKJV Luke 17:1
Offences must come, but the Bible seems to be so keen on the instigators. While God reminds us that offences should come, this is even given more light by the first question on anger issues. Every time we are angry, God seems to be asking us to be accountable by providing a clear and concise inference on our anger. "Why are you angry, And why is your countenance fallen?"
This is a question that comes to all of us. The problem begins when we don't answer the question correctly. When we don't answer this fundamental question well, we are liable to solve the wrong problem which has tremendous effects on our interpersonal relations. Some of how we solve the wrong problem when angry is cutting off people, breaking relationships, outbursts of wrath and ranting carelessly, getting into physical fights, hiding in addictions, et cetera.
Furthermore, we need to filter the things that are worth getting angry for. Just imagine the lives of people who are so attached to the things of this world that they are being tossed to and fro in a whirlwind of anger. Think of those people who have attached their emotions to things like sports that they can lose their cool because of undesirable results. It is worse if you have attached your interest to a club whose glorious days are in the past.
As you think about managing anger through careful analysis of anger-brewing situations, also think well about things you have permitted to play around with your emotions. Are they things worth being angry about? How will the people who respect you think about you when they realise that such things make you angry?
Any time you get angry, just remember God has dropped a question your way beforehand: "Why are angry? And why has your countenance fallen?"
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