CONTENTS

1. Introduction 

Part One: Anger

2. Let's Get Indignant!

3. But Don't Stay Angry 

4. Is Anger Right or Wrong? 

5. The Foundations of Anger 

6. The Cycle of Anger

7. Destructive Styles of Dealing With Anger 

8. First Aid Methods for Coping With Anger 

9. Cure: Relieving the Causes of Anger

10. Anger in the Family: Dangerous House Guest 

11. The Prevention of Anger

12. Anger Toward God

13. When the Other Person Is Angry 

14. Benefits of Anger

15. Indignation: What, When, and How 

16. Action Plans

Part Two: Forgiving

17. The Terrible Price of Not Forgiving

18. Callie Escapes From Her Trap

19. Infinite Value Times Two

20. Better Than Forgetting 

21. Be Free From a Cage of Fear: Jimmy and the Bullies

22. Be Free From Tension in Marriage: Ken and Ruth Make Up 

23. Be Free From Resentment: Tom and His Ex-Wife

24. Be Free From an Empty Childhood: Zeno the Ambitious 

25. Be Free From Self-Condemnation: A Perfectionist Forgives Himself 

26. Be Free From Guilt: A Proud Man Learns To Apologize

27. Be Free From Prejudice: Nora Loves "The Enemy"

28. Be Free From Anger Toward God: How Larry Found a Friend 

29. Be Free From Worry: Anna's Rebellious Child 

30. Forgiving Others: License or Limits?

31. Action Plans for Forgiving

Epilogue: Living Free

32. Let’s Get on with Living 207

chapter two

LET'S GET INDIGNANT!

Debby, a high-school junior, sounded without hope, her voice worn weary from despair, wasted weak from suppressing her anger. "My mother says if I'd only get straightened out spiritually, everything would be okay. But what do I want with their religion, for all the good it does them? Look at this," she said, pointing to her legs. They were a mass of ugly bruises from ankles to knees. "And," she added, "you're not even seeing half of what my mother did to me."

"When did she do that?" I asked.

"Oh, that happened on the night I was arrested for speeding," she said.

It was hard for her to continue the story, but gamely the emotionally battered girl struggled to describe the chaos that was her life. I learned that the parents believed that Debby was demon-possessed. They had invited a few friends over and, insisting on Debby's participation, had prayed for exorcism. After the guests went home and her parents had gone to bed, Debby found a bottle of wine, drank half of it, and "borrowed" the family car. Within an hour she was arrested for exceeding the speed limit and driving without a license. Her parents were angry when they picked her up at the police station; her mother expressed her anger by kicking and beating Debby when they got home.

The mother later told me, "The family could get along if it weren't for Debby's spiritual problems." She honestly believed that. She blindly, ignorantly, and honestly believed it because, as she said, "We're living the way we are supposed to."

Debby's father tried to be a strong leader in his family. Unfortunately he believed—based upon what he had learned at a church-sponsored seminar—that physical force was a legitimate way to carry out his responsibility as head of the household. He was emotionally and physically brutal to his wife and to his children.

Anger moves through families with more predictability than red hair. Hostility was passed from husband to wife and from wife to daughter. Debby needed to eat, so she kept coming home and she kept quiet. She'd be punished if she "rebelled against authority of the home," her father yelled. The pressure grew. It seemed to Debby that nothing she did would please her parents and all she got for her efforts were bruises. But what could she do? The pressure continued to grow.

Then Debby met a boy who cared about her and understood how she felt. He understood because his parents were worse than hers. That he cared about her suddenly made the world a glorious new place for Debby. It wasn't important to her that the boy believed he was homosexual, that he didn't own a toothbrush, or that he hadn't worked in the three months since he'd been fired for incompetence from a menial job. She didn't care about any of that, because he cared for her. Being cared about was something new and different to Debby, and she thought it was wonderful.

Debby's father didn't think it was so wonderful. One night when her boyfriend arrived, Debby's father looked at him leaning against the wall with his shirttail hanging out, his fly unzipped, and a transistor radio pressed against his ear. Her father came unglued. "Get out of here, you scruffy punk!" he yelled, and he shoved Debby's friend backward through the screen door.

The boy moved away, and things were very quiet in the household. Father was pleased. It soon became even quieter when Debby rode the bus two hundred miles to join her boyfriend; to set up house with the only person she'd ever known who cared about her. Her mother told the family counselor, "See—I knew she'd make a mess of things!"

The parents’ senseless, sinful, criminal behavior bombarded Debby year after year. She resented it and hated her parents, but hated herself even more because she felt so worthless. She felt so unloved that five times she had tried to kill herself, hoping her mom and dad would take an interest in her, Her mother said, "I don't care if she does die, after all the trouble she's caused me."

We see anger expressed in two ways. Debby's parents were caught up in rage and were getting away with it. Her father had killed his conscience with perverse distortions of Christianity and had convinced his family to tolerate his criminal behavior. Her mother was adept at projecting the parental sins onto Debby and matching father's physical punishment blow for blow. They had perfected deception, for there probably was not a member of their large church who would have believed a word of what you've just read about Debby's parents. About Debby, yes; about her parents, never!

Debby was as angry as the parents but expressed it in resentment. Unable to display any emotion without being condemned and punished by her family, she kept all of her feelings inside. She could not talk about her pain with anyone, let alone resist the abuse that rained down on her. All she had known to do was to believe that she was worthless and to wish for any kind of escape, even death, from the dysfunction that was her life.

This was a sick family driving each other to hell's door in the presence of a church family that smugly condemned Debby's frantic, desperate clutching after the "life abundant" that Christ had come to bring her. Doesn't this arouse indignation in you?

The Proper Reaction

In addition to rage and resentment there is a third way in which anger can find expression—indignation. Sometimes it is the best form.

Indignation is the proper reaction to injustice if it energizes our physical and emotional systems to oppose evil, to right the wrongs that have been done to those we care about, and to work hard for social changes that will spare others from abuse and suffering. Feelings of anger can spring out of a Christian's sensitivity to human welfare. While rage and resentment are aggressive, seeking to destroy their target, indignation seeks to mobilize the forces of good to challenge and defeat the forces of destruction and oppression. Indignation is the opposite of complacent acceptance of evil conditions. My response to an incident that happened many years ago illustrates indignation.

One of my close friends had personal and family problems that seemed overwhelming. Seeking help, he went to a counseling center operated by a large church in his city. At the beginning of his first appointment the counselor said, "You wouldn't believe the situation of that lady who just walked out of here! What problems! But I gave her a lot of help!" He began describing the problems and his response to them with the spotlight on the thought "Look at what a great counselor I am! Aren't I great!"

My friend looked that self-centered counselor in the eye and said, "It's obvious that you are more interested in talking about yourself than in listening to me," and walked out. It was his last contact with organized Christianity for seven years. It was seven years of living hell for him, tottering on the brink of suicide, and seven years of pain and uncertainty for his family.

Using Anger Righteously

My friend survived, and through God's faithful care, normal family life was restored. But when I think of the incompetence and indifference of the counselor who bungled an opportunity to help my friend, I become angry. Why? Because a Christian, in a position to help others, couldn't see beyond the illusion of his own self-importance. He failed without having tried. When I recall that counselor's inexcusable professional failure, I am angry because the seven years of my friend's suffering might have been prevented. That fresh sense of anger, properly channeled and committed to God's service can help me to stay determined to put the other person first when I counsel.

Rage and resentment are destructive expressions of anger; indignation is a constructive loving expression. When we feel angry, for whatever reasons, it is the common experience of all persons, Christians and nonbelievers alike, to move toward destructive expression unless there is a willful decision to think, act, and feel constructively. If we choose, there are constructive paths to follow in coping with the feelings of anger and resolving the root causes.

God wants us to be stirred to action. Indignation is one of the energizing mechanisms God has given us as a tool. We are God's body on earth. Our indignation is given to us to fire up our engines and to run our bodies for God's service.

We must be a voice to protest evil where we live, to say, "That's not fair!" and "You may not do that!" We are a voice to ask the unanswerable, to love the unforgiving, and to forgive the unkind. We are to mobilize those around us to action, to be voices to prod others to awareness of needs, to inflame their hearts with passion for service.

We must be arms to pull down the facades of hypocrisy, to throw out impersonal, programmed churchianity, to sweep out the clutter of meaningless form, and to make room for a powerful renewal of authentic living personal Christianity.

We must be legs to kick out the props of self-serving politics from leaders who speak empty words instead of proclaiming the glory of God's Word to a wisdom-starved generation.

We must have a strong back to shovel out the decaying remains of Pharisaisms and to till the ground for a new growth of wholesome, life-giving spiritual food for a hungry world.

Our lives must illustrate God's compassionate response to the wretchedness of the human condition; we must celebrate in our lives, God's eternal conquest of sin.

There is an image more beautiful than any image on earth, an image so beautiful that it cannot be captured on canvas or film or cast in precious metal. It is the image of one person loving God enough to serve others totally, with complete energy, emotion, mind, and devotion—charging forcefully and passionately against the enemy Sin.

Such giving away of our selfish interests usually happens only after we have experience indignation at the deadly path of sin, an indignation that approaches as closely as possible the intensity of God's own revulsion toward sin. We should have this kind of indignation.

We should seek this intensity of indignation. How much do you have? Please pray for more.

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