“We won’t often admit this, but we like being angry.”

A thought by Brant Hansen (2015-04-14) from his book, Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better (p. 5). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

Well, I won’t admit that it is true. But then maybe he’s right. I know he is right.

Brant continues, “We don’t like what caused the anger, to be sure; we just like thinking we’ve ‘got’ something on someone. So-and-so did something wrong, sometimes horribly wrong, and anger offers us a sense of moral superiority.” Oh no. Here comes that pride thing.

He goes on, “That’s why we call it ‘righteous anger,’ after all. It’s moral and good, we want to think. Problem is, ‘righteous anger’ directed at someone is pretty tricky. It turns out that I tend to find Brant Hansen’s anger more righteous than others’ anger. This is because I’m so darn right. I’m me. I tend to side with me. My arguments are amazingly convincing to me. But inconveniently, there’s this proverb that says, ‘You may believe you are doing right, but the LORD will judge your reasons’ (Prov. 16: 2 NCV).”

Brant later says, “The thing that you think makes your anger ‘righteous’ is the very thing you are called to forgive. Grace isn’t for the deserving. Forgiving means surrendering your claim to resentment and letting go of anger. Anger is extraordinarily easy. It’s our default setting. Love is very difficult. Love is a miracle.”

And there it is, “Anger is extraordinarily easy…Love is very difficult. Love is a miracle.” Anger comes from our pride, from our selfishness, it does not come from God. Love comes from God because God is love.

Anger shows us how much we need God. And we need him every moment of every day.

Don't we?

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