The Righteousness God Desires

Why Human Anger Falls Short

“Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. ”

— James 1:19-20 (NLT)

Maybe it's because of the climate that we're living in, but it seems like everyone is inviting us to be outraged and angry at what is, or what isn't, going on. Regardless of your source of news it is likely that the heavily made up pundit wants you to use your anger. As if being in a constant state of anger is necessary to make any changes. "No," says James, "Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires."

The verse isn't suggesting that we should never be outraged or angry, we should. Anger is healthy because it informs you that something is taking place that goes against your will. Someone stole from your purse. Someone cut you off in traffic. The team you wanted to win lost on the final play. That feeling of anger is like an alarm clock that wakes us up and makes us aware. But like an alarm clock we should press the "stop" button after it does its job in waking us up. We shouldn't walk around all day with that noise blaring in our ear. Thus, the apostle Paul says, "Lay aside anger..." (Col. 3:8).

The reason human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires is because it is focused on something that is obstructing my will, it is going against what I want. Therefore it will lead me to act in protection of my will. When acting in anger there is often little to no regard of the offending party. They are simply something that needs to stop. NOW! And like one who is walking around with an alarm clock blaring in their ear, our actions are often spiked because of the state of annoyance that we are in, and they carry with them undue harm... which leads to anger in the other person. A vicious cycle.

What then? Love.

Love produces the righteousness that God desires. Lay aside anger and pursue love.It won't take much thought to see how this is better so I won't take the time to explain it. But I will recall a story, probably apocryphal, about people from East Berlin dumping trash in West Berlin. The next day people from West Berlin dropped off cans of food in East Berlin. On the cans were written these words, "Each gives what he has." Imagine if they would've responded in kind... in anger?

Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.

I'm not a person who is regularly given to anger, but I am far from being the kind of person who routinely produces the righteousness God desires. That's the vision of life in Christ.