Angry people scare me.
I once saw a guy get so angry that he punched a hole through a wall.
Another time, I saw a girl kick a concrete wall so hard that she broke two of her own toes.
I don’t really know why, but when people get angry—I mean truly angry—they seem to possess a level of energy that they never realized possible. Anger is like rocket fuel for the soul.
Sometimes I get so angry that I can’t sit down. The anger fills me so much that I literally cannot make myself stop moving. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it is overwhelming.
In the book of Mark, there is a scene in which Jesus is in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and he encounters a man with a shriveled hand. The religious leaders are watching to see if Jesus is going to heal the guy, because they want to accuse him of healing people on the Sabbath. Knowing how they felt and that they wanted to exploit this guy’s pain for their own agenda, Jesus gets angry.
He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. (Mark 3:5)
When Jesus gets angry, what does he do about it? He heals a guy’s shriveled hand.
Jesus’ anger leads to healing and restoration.
When I get angry, it often results in dark thoughts, destructive words, and a lingering sense of bitterness in my soul.
When Jesus gets angry, a man is healed. Jesus’ anger actually makes the world a better place.
Perhaps I have a thing or two to learn from Jesus’ kind of anger. Perhaps I could learn to channel my own anger towards healing and redemption rather than frustration and bitterness. Perhaps when I become angry, I can use it to the benefit of something redemptive and beautiful. What if, every time I felt angry, I did something to make the world a better place?
Do hunger, child abuse, human trafficking, sexism, bigotry, homophobia, or any of the other hundreds of injustices in this world make you angry?
Perhaps your anger can be used in a healthy, redemptive, beautiful way.
Perhaps you can use your anger to raise awareness of global wrongdoings or to remind yourself to show love to marginalized people or to feed a hungry child.
Perhaps your anger can make the world a better place.
What do you think? What makes you angry? How have you seen people use their anger to make the world a better place?