How to Deal with Anger and Unforgiveness Part 1

"You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. Leviticus 19:17 ESV

Upon reading "You shall not hate your brother in your heart…” you may have immediately thought of personal feelings of animosity because of an offense taken and you think that God does not want you to harbor such feelings mainly for the sake of your personal well being. “It isn’t good for you to be angry because of your high-blood pressure.” Ever heard that one? You may think that God is concerned mainly about “the deadly effects of negative emotions on the body” in the Dr. Don Colbert sense. Such a view is too narrow at best and selfish at worse. Our health should be of secondary concern. God’s command is "You shall not hate your brother in your heart…lest you incur sin...” Committing sin before him and causing your neighbor to also sin is God’s main concern. This is not to deny that God cares about your feelings. He cares more than you can even imagine, but he sees past mere symptoms (feelings of anger) and sees the root of the matter (sin) because He is indeed “…living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:12-13).

First of all, it isn’t sinful to be angry. God made us this way. Sin should anger you. There is something very wrong when a person can live in this world with all of the injustices that take place daily and yet remain unmoved. I believe that in most cases indifference is the sin we ought to be concerned with more than with anger. There ought to be as much an effort to help people with indifference management as much as with anger management. There are times when we ought to be raving mad, but we aren’t because of our cold and insensitive hearts and unconcern for our fellow human i.e. our neighbor. When God says, "You shall not hate your brother in your heart” he means you shall not hate your brother in such a way that you continually harbor hateful feelings. Unlike the positive feeling of happiness and joy anger and hatred are unresolved feelings. Think of them as indicators that something is wrong and call upon you to resolve the matter like an engine light that comes on calling attention to impending car trouble. The engine warning light in your car is not the actual problem, but it serves to call attention that something is wrong and that you must address before things can become worse.

Our natural response to anger is to think of how to make such feelings subside as if that were the main and only goal? As stated, this view is self-centered and selfish. Our resolve ought to be in diagnosing and administering God’s prognosis to the situation and that prognosis goes beyond merely making the “yucky” feeling go away so that you merely feel better. The feelings serve only as an alarm to a bigger problem and God would have you to resolve it because HE LOVES YOU AND HE LOVES YOUR NEIGHBOR! So what’s the problem? The problem is this strained and/or broken relationship with your neighbor because of an offence committed. This is the context of Leviticus 17:9-18. Vengeance presents itself as an attractive option yet God has clearly declared that this is not an option for us if we are to remain in the right. For the very next verse (vs 18) says, “You shall not take vengeance.” Therefore "you shall not hate your brother in your heart” means that you shall not maliciously scheme and plot to bring your neighbor to ruin in an act of vengeance for having offended you. The heart of God’s command is to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Vengeance seeks to right wrongs. God is all for righting wrongs, but we ought to seek to resolve wrongs according to his way and not ours.

You Have Legitimate Reason to Be Angry

This is the second thing you ought to take notice of is this. The command to “not hate your brother in your heart” is not God’s way of saying that you have no real reason to be angry, but the scripture presupposes that a legitimate wrong has been committed. God isn’t saying to you, “You have no reason to be angry so get over it!” He isn't insensitive toward you. Jesus expands upon this very command. We find his explanation in Matthew 18:15. He says,

"If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault….”

The typical response by someone who has been legitimately offended is to avoid the offending party and inform others either by phone, text messaging, Twitter, Facebook etc. It goes something like this, “Can you believe [insert name here] did [insert offence here]? He/She is such a [insert insulting name here]!” At this point it is gossip. Look at Jesus’ words and notice the word go. Go and do what? Gossip? Slander? It is at this point that most people go from victim to sinner by “incur[ring] sin" through gossip and slander. Jesus said, “go and tell him his fault.” This is different from the typical attitude that says,

“I don’t see why I have to be the one to go to them and address the matter. They are the ones who offended me and therefore they ought to be the ones to initiate an apology! I’m here when they are ready!”

Is this what Jesus would have you do? No. He said, "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault….” There are a several number of reasons for this and I don’t have time to elaborate on them all, but here’s a practical one. The person may not know they offended you and if so they may not have done so intentionally!

To be continued