Season 4 Episode 4: Anger
brenda_payne (00:02.07)
Hey, Alex, today we're continuing our series on wisdom for life's common struggles. Now you and I wouldn't know anything about these, would we, Alex? Except for the fact that once again, we're back to confessing our own issues every time we share one of these episodes. And today will be no different, Alex, because part of walking with people well is being able to have some transparency yourself and something that we wanna model.
alex_kocher (00:05.883)
Hey, Brenda.
alex_kocher (00:10.346)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (00:14.303)
No. Hahaha.
alex_kocher (00:19.265)
Yes.
alex_kocher (00:22.983)
Yes.
alex_kocher (00:31.525)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (00:32.59)
on our podcast. So today we're going to be talking about the problem of anger and if you had, you know, when I look at some of the struggles that we have or are covering, I can identify with anxiety, fear of man, you know, some bitterness issues, but the issue of anger is not one that I would tell you that I struggle with, but this is going to just show how self-deceived I am, Alex. So therein lies a whole nother problem. I would tell you,
alex_kocher (00:56.742)
Yes.
alex_kocher (01:00.482)
Yes.
brenda_payne (01:02.11)
I don't have an anger problem. And at least I didn't think I had one until I had three children in five years. And then that did reveal to me that maybe there was more anger there than I realized. You know, but I'd like to have thought that I've grown a lot in my spiritual walk and that this is really not so much an issue for me. But I'm taking some ladies through a biblical counseling certification. And as a part of that, I was challenged to keep track for several days of things that upset me.
alex_kocher (01:13.806)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (01:32.09)
angry and why? And I thought this is going to be easy breezy because I am not an angry person. I mean, I'm an Enneagram seven, I'm an otter, I'm an optimist. This is an easy assignment for me. Well, the first day, I think I had four instances within like the first four hours or less. So I kind of blew that whole theory of mine out of the water. I mean, you know, the first thing happened in the morning is my husband was talking to me from
alex_kocher (01:37.089)
Oh.
alex_kocher (01:54.922)
Thank you. Bye.
brenda_payne (02:02.15)
And it was sort of sounded like that, you know, and I'm trying to get ready and I'm in a rush. And I think the thing that really bothers me is when I do that, Paul has this saying that he goes, no eye contact, no eye contact. And that is my cue, like, don't talk to me from another room or from the closet or in the shower. And so now he's got no eye contact. And now, you know, it's, it's, but it's, it's, you know, it's him is the one that's not doing it. And then I think the second thing, I went to the grocery store that morning and I got in that line that, you know, the short line
alex_kocher (02:06.026)
Uh huh, uh huh.
alex_kocher (02:16.024)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (02:32.17)
the long line, Alex, that one, that the express lane, but the lady in the express lane has all these complications and her three credit cards don't work. And now all the other lanes have gone through while I'm waiting there and I am just getting angry and angrier as I'm in. I'm like, what's wrong with this lady? What's wrong with the cashier? Why did I get a different line? And then this was probably the worst one. I'm driving out to the mall and the road is closing and I can see I'm in a turning lane and the people in the right lane are being pushed over to my lane.
alex_kocher (02:34.402)
Yes, yes, the express lane, yes.
brenda_payne (03:02.43)
And you know, you can begin seeing the people on the right there, the ones that are trying to drive ahead of you to get further and get in front of you. And you know how you start getting so angry is like, uh-uh, heck no, you get back. You were behind me. And so this lady, Alex, she's this probably sweet little elderly woman comes up beside me and now I'm pretending that I don't even see her because I'm so mad that she's going to try to get in front of me. She's got her blinkers on and I'm like, no, heck no, you're not getting in front of me. And I actually sped up.
alex_kocher (03:09.426)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (03:12.982)
Yes. Yes. No.
brenda_payne (03:32.79)
to keep her from getting in front of me. And then, you know, eventually she did end up getting over. I think the Holy Spirit got a hold of my heart and was like, what are you doing, Brenda? And I waved her on over. But that was kind of the initial thing. And then finally that day, I was calling to return some boots. And you know how you have to press this number and then press one and then press six and then press eight and then hold. And then you hold forever. And then the worst thing is not just when you have to hold forever, but it's when they hang up on you.
alex_kocher (03:34.284)
Ha ha!
alex_kocher (03:56.497)
Yes.
brenda_payne (04:02.712)
Right? Like you've just waited 30 minutes and the call drops. And I'm like,
alex_kocher (04:04.443)
Yes, yes.
brenda_payne (04:09.95)
and you just dropped my call, and you know you can't call back and get the same person. No, you have to start the whole thing all over again. So maybe I was really just being tested in this morning. I don't know, but what I came to realize is that it's all of these little aggravations in my life that still provoke me to anger. And Ecclesiastes 7.9 is a great verse that says, do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools. And honestly, I know as I look back at all of these examples,
alex_kocher (04:11.542)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Nooo
alex_kocher (04:26.043)
Huh?
alex_kocher (04:29.427)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (04:37.453)
Oh.
brenda_payne (04:39.97)
foolish they are and how foolishly I acted in each and every one of these. But I'm just realizing that, you know, anger has kind of that, um, temptation to put you in the, the mindset of it's me first and my way.
alex_kocher (04:43.602)
Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (04:58.082)
Yes, yeah. You know, I would have also told you that I'm not an angry person. And back when I did my first Enneagram Testimony Enneagram One, an Enneagram's besetting sin is anger. An Enneagram One's besetting sin is anger. And I was like, what? I'm not angry. And then I've learned the Enneagram from a really helpful woman who does it from a gospel perspective, from a Christian perspective. And, um,
brenda_payne (05:13.25)
Huh?
brenda_payne (05:18.55)
Bye bye. Bye bye.
alex_kocher (05:27.962)
things that I think I think she was the one who's Beth McCord and one of the things I think she said was that in any agreement one's anger is if everybody would just do it right we wouldn't have these problems and that as soon as it was put that way I was like oh that is me and I live there I live there because so much of my mantra is just do it right for myself but also then for other people and if everybody would do it right we wouldn't have these issues
brenda_payne (05:39.194)
There you go!
brenda_payne (05:44.75)
Ha ha ha
brenda_payne (05:53.31)
Yeah. Yep.
alex_kocher (05:58.202)
like pulling people pulling out in front of you or the express line taking too long and so I really have had to own just like you're saying I've had to own my low-level almost constant anger and it's been very convicting so it's been a challenge as we put this together it's been a challenge for me at least to really come up with a definition of anger that feels all encompassing because as we're going to talk about today there is righteous anger there's unrighteous
brenda_payne (06:07.65)
Yeah.
Yeah.
brenda_payne (06:25.635)
Yep.
alex_kocher (06:28.022)
we address both in one definition and so we are definitely not going to say all there is to say about anger. We are probably not going to definitively solve whether you are in in righteous or unrighteous anger because I personally believe there's there's a blending of motive sometime that's very hard to see and and differentiate between what parts of our anger are righteous or unrighteous. But David Palacin did write a book called Good and Angry and this is
brenda_payne (06:36.85)
Hehehe
brenda_payne (06:45.935)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (06:51.657)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (06:54.936)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (06:58.102)
of anger, he says, anger is active displeasure towards something that's important enough to care about. Okay, and that's big and that's really broad and it's broad intentionally, but I think it's helpful for us to begin to think about anger as something that that is displeasure. And again, we're going to break down how we see it as righteous or unrighteous. But I think what he's saying is that anger is something that says I'm against that. I don't like it. I'm against it.
brenda_payne (07:23.912)
Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (07:28.302)
It's an active stance that that we take to oppose something that we assess as important or wrong. It's a response that says this is not the way it's supposed to be and it's a response that usually shows that I have something that I desire or desired goal and it's being blocked. And again we're gonna talk about how that can be righteous or unrighteous. The other thing just in the big picture
brenda_payne (07:48.271)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (07:58.002)
us to think about anger is that anger is energy and we know that we feel it in our body but it expresses the anger of our reaction to something that we find offensive or that we want to eliminate and so anger I think if we could think about it like that that's the big broad picture of anger and then we can begin hopefully to tease out a little bit of what makes it righteous or unrighteous and again with this podcast we have a handout where we've tried to put
brenda_payne (08:00.171)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (08:10.135)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (08:27.922)
these thoughts down that you can actually print out and you can go through as we walk through the podcast and then you can use it as a tool as you assess whether your anger and what parts of your anger may be righteous or unrighteous.
brenda_payne (08:39.55)
Yeah. No, I think that's so helpful. Well, the other thing we want to remember is like all of these struggles we're talking about, it involves all of you. Anger is not just a part of your thinking or just a part of your emotions or just a part of your actions. It is an all encompassing response. And the first thing that we need to look at is how it impacts the body. And like you were saying, we can actually, I mean, anger is one of those emotions you definitely feel like for me, my heart races.
alex_kocher (08:51.324)
Yes.
brenda_payne (09:09.45)
I can feel myself getting hot. Like all of a sudden, like I feel my face getting hot and like kind of on fire, you know? A lot of times we feel really charged and energized. Like maybe we're even going to explode or implode. And so there's definitely a real body response involved here. The other thing is in our thinking, and this is some of what you were talking about, but anger makes value judgments. And here's the tricky part. They can be real or perceived, right?
alex_kocher (09:10.107)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (09:13.622)
Yes.
alex_kocher (09:23.722)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (09:37.666)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (09:39.49)
wrong or there can be a perceived wrong. But what we ended up ended up doing when we're angry, we make a judgment, we say, this is right and that is wrong. Or worse yet, we say, I am right and you are wrong. You know, and the danger so often are these snap arrest judgments that can lead us to sinful anger because if we don't judge rightly, if we don't make good and wise assessments, we can really be derailed. And you know, James one 19 and
alex_kocher (09:40.223)
Right, yes.
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (09:49.342)
Yes.
and you were on it. Yes.
alex_kocher (10:06.266)
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (10:09.45)
that many of us are familiar with, it talks about being slow to anger, that we don't need to be quick. We need to be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, and then it just talks about how the right, the anger, the man, goodness gracious, I'm getting tongue twied. I'm even getting tongue twied about my tongue time. Man's anger does not bring about the righteousness that God desires. And so one of the things that we need to really understand is that if we sin in our anger, we're not going,
alex_kocher (10:15.722)
Thank you. Thank you.
alex_kocher (10:27.909)
Ha ha ha.
alex_kocher (10:31.445)
I guess.
brenda_payne (10:39.51)
going to help the problem and it's not going to be beneficial to us.
alex_kocher (10:46.782)
Yeah, I think I'm really convicted when I hear you talk about the value judgments of right and wrong because one of the things I've really seen about myself over the last year is how often I even use the phraseology that's wrong and that's right on issues that are not moral and they're not biblical. And it's really made me realize it's taken my concept of what it means to be a self right to sparrows see that I am.
brenda_payne (11:04.364)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (11:16.802)
level as I hear this speech and I say well that's just not right and there is it's not a right or wrong situation or that's wrong you know so and so shouldn't do that that shouldn't happen or and they're really got this and have anything to say about that and I'm imposing my values and my my moral sensibility onto things that he hasn't and so I have really had to pull myself back from that and really begin to recognize how those
brenda_payne (11:22.235)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (11:37.357)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (11:46.842)
value judgments are feeding that low-level resentment that I'm carrying around feeding that anger and then how that's affecting my emotions because that causes me to either vent about other people or to stuff which would be like that exploding or the imploding both are doing damage in different ways and then as we said because it's affecting all of us then we see our
brenda_payne (11:49.99)
Yeah, yeah.
brenda_payne (12:02.734)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (12:16.622)
feeling that we are experiencing and we can do actions that either tear others down or and don't build them up and so we see our anger negatively affecting. Now as we're going to talk about in a minute there is a place for righteous anger to have positive action but so often when our anger is negative and when our anger is unrecognized I think that's really big is when we find ourselves doing destruction that we don't even recognize is coming from a place of anger.
brenda_payne (12:29.795)
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (12:37.234)
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (12:43.85)
Exactly. Well, we need to talk about this idea of righteous anger, because a lot of times people think that there is no room for anger in the Christian walk, and it is always sinful and wrong. And we want to dispel that rumor, Alex. You know, in Ephesians, Paul tells the Ephesians, when you are angry, do not sin. When you are angry, not if you are angry, but when you are angry,
alex_kocher (12:50.845)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (12:59.723)
Mm-hmm. I do. Yeah
alex_kocher (13:10.405)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (13:13.79)
here that, hey, there might be some reasons, some good and godly reasons to be angry. And that's kind of the key right there. Are there good and godly reasons to be angry? Robert Jones, who wrote my favorite book on anger called Uprooting Anger, says, anger that imitates God's anger is righteous anger. Righteous anger is an accurate perception of true evil that violates God's moral law and expresses itself without sinning.
So God gets angry and since we're made in His image, there are going to be appropriate times for us to get angry. And Alex, I would go so far as to say that being indifferent in certain situations is actually very unloving. Like there are times that we must be angry. And then for us to remember again that anger is an energy that moves us to act when there's injustice. That's really should be our motivation. Something's going on.
alex_kocher (13:57.186)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (14:00.865)
Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (14:05.264)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (14:14.793)
We want to protect the innocent and the helpless and we want to address the real problems
alex_kocher (14:23.782)
One of the other things I've learned about righteous anger is sometimes we think only of injustice as oppressing and oppressor, but that there is a place for righteous anger where our purpose as image bearers is not being played out. And that certainly includes oppression, but it also includes places where we are made for connectedness.
for creativity and joy. And so there's a place for righteous anger where we see those things shut down. And so I think there's a place for anger in relationships where we see trauma occurring and things like that. And it may not always be clear where there is an oppressor, so to speak, but there is someone acting against the purpose of image bearing in another person. And so I just said, that's been helpful for me
brenda_payne (15:17.375)
Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (15:22.722)
especially as I understand my own anger over past hurts, and to give it a rightful place. And the word oppression or injustice feels really strong, and it doesn't rise to that level. But then when I can see it as, but wait a minute, as image bearers, we were made for this connectivity, and it was broken because of this deceit, or it was broken because of this. Then I can see where there's a place for righteous anger when the,
brenda_payne (15:34.335)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (15:49.15)
Mm.
alex_kocher (15:52.862)
when our connection as image bearers is not being fulfilled the way that God designed it to be.
brenda_payne (15:58.533)
Hmm. That's really good. That's really good. Well, what about unrighteous anger?
alex_kocher (16:05.382)
Yes, so unrighteous anger I think is a little bit easier to identify usually because of the behavior that accompanies unrighteous anger, but this would be anger for the wrong reasons or expressed in the wrong ways. You know, it's hard for any of us to express anger well. I think we're very uncomfortable with our anger. Think in evangelical circles we're particularly uncomfortable with anger. And so then we end up not knowing how to handle it.
brenda_payne (16:06.95)
Shhh..
alex_kocher (16:34.222)
And so we do tend, I say, what I think, what I see most people do is they stuff and then it comes out sideways. It comes out in these ways that we don't expect and we're going to talk about those. But it is possible to be right about the right things, to be right about our assessment of the situation and yet to handle it in a wrong way. So sometimes we may not think we have an anger problem, but what we see again is that we stuff.
brenda_payne (16:39.292)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (16:55.234)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (17:04.302)
ways in ways like harshness and demeaning which would be pretty obvious but maybe it comes out just as irritability or maybe it comes out as a low-level impatience with other people. Maybe it comes out as bitterness as holding on to hurt and not letting it go or indignance of like I'm you know I'm always just a little bit put out. It comes off like I said for myself and this is the main way it comes out for me as a self-righteousness. If everybody would just do it the way I think it's right
brenda_payne (17:32.85)
Mm-hmm. Right.
alex_kocher (17:34.422)
we would be fine and then it comes out passive aggressively and so that's very hard to detect. So all of these are ways that we are that are rooted in anger that may be coming out sideways because we don't know how to express anger well. You know...
brenda_payne (17:50.29)
And can I say too, Alex, I think it's really important that we recognize that as anger. It kind of goes back to when I was talking about taking note of things that upset me, because I do think that we can minimize the anger and rationalize it when we start only understanding, oh, I'm just a little impatient. I was a little irritable. But if we kind of pull back the layer of the onion and we really begin to say, like, wow, that's anger, and it was actually unrighteous anger, or it was righteous anger expressed
alex_kocher (18:02.243)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (18:09.005)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (18:12.784)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (18:19.864)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (18:21.795)
I think that we begin to have a more accurate view of what's really going on in our hearts.
alex_kocher (18:28.482)
Yeah, I think that's really good. Ed Welch has something really convicting. He has an article called The Madness of Anger, and we can link to that. And he talks about the fact that all anger is, all sin is irrational, but that anger has a particular quality of irrationality that makes it hard for us to see reason, and it makes it hard for us to see ourselves in the midst of the situation. And when I think about time,
just an everyday life that I get angry, that is so true. That I can go from zero to a hundred on the anger scale just like that because I see how something's affected me, but I'm not seeing the situation clearly at all and I'm reacting very quickly. And so I think that phrase, the madness of anger, makes me chuckle, right? The play on words, like there's a craziness of madness and then of course we're mad. But it is a good, it's just a good little
brenda_payne (19:00.436)
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (19:16.55)
I'm just gonna go back to the room and talk to you.
alex_kocher (19:28.422)
check and reminder when I am feeling angry of like, am I mad? Like am I being completely irrational here and moving away from what God would be angry about and just moving into I want what I want.
brenda_payne (19:32.29)
hh hh hh hh hh hh
brenda_payne (19:41.597)
Mm-hmm
Yeah. Well, it reminds me when my children were little, one of my prayers, um, every day was Lord, don't let me look as crazy as they look by, you know, by the end of the day, I, the two year old's pitching a fit and you know, you've had to take something from them and they are having a mad moment. And what I didn't want to do is respond in kind, have my own mad moment over their mad moment. I wanted to be able to reel it in and have some self-control and to be able to deal with it well. But, uh, but that is the madness is really true. When we see somebody just losing,
alex_kocher (19:54.267)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (20:00.985)
Yes.
Hmm. Hmm. Yes.
brenda_payne (20:14.01)
their mind over anger. It does look like they are completely crazy. And I have to tell you, I have been that crazy woman a time or two. Right? Maybe three or four times, you know, but no, that's good. So what we want to do is we really want to slow down again, going back to the James first of being quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to be angry. Tim Keller says the biblical ideal is not no anger or blow up anger, but slow.
alex_kocher (20:17.222)
Thank you. Thank you.
alex_kocher (20:23.583)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah
brenda_payne (20:43.99)
anger. And this particular tool that we want to share as a way to sort of test whether or not our anger is righteous or unrighteous or a mix of both and what we need to do with it. And if we will slow down and evaluate our anger, we're going to, it's going to be a lot more helpful and less hurtful because when we think about imploding and exploding, imploding is oftentimes what hurts us the most, at least initially, because most imploders
alex_kocher (20:46.443)
That's good.
brenda_payne (21:14.05)
explode, but exploders are just always like venting. So they're getting the relief of, okay, I'm not angry anymore, but they're just shooting, you know, they're shrapnel going everywhere and taking other people down. And so it really, it's really an important emotion that has so much potential for good, but it also has so much potential to damage ourselves and damage other people. So there's just really three kind of ideas and questions, Alex, in this journal
alex_kocher (21:15.063)
Yes.
alex_kocher (21:26.284)
Right.
brenda_payne (21:43.97)
And we're gonna go through the journal questions and then we're gonna give a few examples. But the first one is righteous anger reacts against actual sin. So the question I'm going to ask myself, am I reacting against actual sin? And this goes back to earlier when you were talking about making value judgments. Like is this really, I'm angry because God's angry about this or am I just angry because I'm angry about this? They're not doing it my way or not in my time.
alex_kocher (21:54.922)
Thank you. Thank you.
alex_kocher (22:04.206)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (22:11.853)
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (22:14.35)
one question. In fact, sometimes I'll forget the other two, but I don't and I think it's because I don't even have to go to the other two. This question is so arresting for me because if I'm not acting against actual sin, then the problem isn't out there. It's in here in my own heart. Like I need to take inventory of what's going on in my heart because there's really no, there's nothing outside of me that should be creating this level of emotion in me.
alex_kocher (22:26.022)
Thank you. Thank you.
alex_kocher (22:44.282)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's good. The next question is are my desires for God's kingdom or my kingdom? And I think that gets gets to the heart of anger. You know, we think about anger as blocked desire. Anger exposes what the heart loves and so is this about what I want? What builds my kingdom or what God wants? What builds his kingdom? What God says about him how image bearer should function? How image bearer should relate to one?
one another. And so I think that is a, that's a great question that begins to get past the surface reaction of anger and down into the heart motivation.
brenda_payne (23:20.15)
Hmm.
brenda_payne (23:23.41)
Yeah, and I think it really, for me, shows me who's at the center of my universe. Is Jesus king or is Brenda king? Because when Christ saved me, he radically transported me into a different kingdom with different kingdom values and concerns and rights. And so often anger comes because I'm clinging to what I think are my rights and demanding those things. And a lot of times those are not my rights. I've laid down my rights. Christ laid down his rights for me
alex_kocher (23:30.147)
Mm-hmm
Yeah.
alex_kocher (23:48.362)
Yes.
brenda_payne (23:53.51)
down my rights for other people as well.
alex_kocher (23:57.962)
Yeah. The last question is, is my anger accompanied by godly qualities and expressions? And you mentioned Robert Jyn's book, Upreading Anger. And he says, rather than keeping us from carrying out God's call, righteous anger leads to godly expressions of worship, ministry, and obedience. It shows concern for the well-being of others. Godly anger confronts evil and calls for repentance
alex_kocher (24:28.202)
Godly anger should be accompanied by a godly response and it can get twisted. Like we said, we can have godly anger and our response gets twisted and we have to repent over our response. But we hope that as we're being shaped by desires to build God's kingdom, then the expression of that anger comes out in a way that reflects him and not our sinful self.
brenda_payne (24:33.135)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (24:53.39)
Yeah, exactly. I think about one of the antidotes for anger is meekness. Is that idea of strength under control that especially when there is a righteous reason for anger, we still have to exercise self-control and we still need to have God's kingdom and ultimately His worship in mind and at the heart of what we're trying to accomplish. So and I think meekness is, you know, it's a quality we don't talk a lot about in our day and age anymore.
alex_kocher (25:00.087)
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (25:23.91)
But we can look at Jesus and we can see that he was meek and mild, but yet he was not wimpy. He was very strong and he was able to stand under intense scrutiny. And there was, I just think about Jesus on the cross, the greatest injustice, the greatest reason to be angry. And he could have called down Heaven's angels and had every single person destroyed, but he didn't. He had that strength under control.
alex_kocher (25:54.282)
Yeah, and then I think we also have to remember that Jesus was displaying perfect meekness when he was turning over the tables in the tabernacle. Like he wasn't not meek then. He was still showing meekness at that moment. One of the things that I've been studying this year is the Beatitudes, and I don't think it's an accident that blessed are those who mourn comes before blessed are the meek. Because I do think that as we allow grief into our anger,
brenda_payne (25:54.6)
Good.
brenda_payne (25:59.791)
That's right.
brenda_payne (26:17.314)
Mm.
alex_kocher (26:24.282)
to respond in meekness, we're more able to respond with wisdom about our anger. So I think it was my counselor who said that when his daughter, when when his son hits his daughter and she's unrighteously angry, she hits him back and when she when she gets in touch with her grief and she's just sad that her brother would
eyes. And I think that's really interesting because I find that's true for me too, that one of the things that softens my anger is when I understand the grief that accompanies my anger, when I allow myself to be sad. Not just, not just angry, but angry that God's purposes aren't being met, but sad and grieving that something is lost in the situation. A connection was lost, an
brenda_payne (27:05.126)
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (27:16.071)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (27:24.242)
was broken and when I allow myself to get in touch with the grief it softens my anger and allows my expression of it to be more godly to be meek.
brenda_payne (27:33.15)
Well, that's so interesting. You say that because my quiet time this morning was in Jeremiah 48 and God is pronouncing judgment on the Moabites. And it's so interesting because there's this one place where he is talking about, I mean, he's saying they're proud, arrogant, insolent, conceited, haughty, boastful, and you know, just all of these terrible qualities and he's angry, but then it says his response. So he's got righteous anger. Now I'm thinking, when I know people like that, Alex, and I do know some people like that, by the way,
alex_kocher (27:39.922)
Thank you. Bye.
Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (27:56.322)
Thank you. Thank you.
brenda_payne (28:03.81)
And sometimes I counsel women who are married to men or have children like that. My response is, well, it's not what God's is. Let me tell you what God's response is. Four times in the next verses, it says, God cried out, he wailed, he moaned, and he wept. In the face of these people, but it goes back to what you're saying, like what is lost is the relationship. God wants a relationship with these people. He wants them to repent.
alex_kocher (28:05.622)
Hmm
alex_kocher (28:15.811)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (28:23.763)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (28:31.646)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (28:33.15)
They're refusing him. They're refusing to do justice, to not be idolaters and to not be basically manifesting their lives with nothing but pride and arrogance and resisting God. And God's response in his anger, because he is bringing judgment to them, is this incredible amount of grief. So let's give a few examples and maybe of how this journaling can work.
alex_kocher (28:37.066)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (28:51.184)
Right.
alex_kocher (28:57.823)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's good.
brenda_payne (29:03.33)
that you could use to first write down in the beginning is always helpful or it can be helpful to use a journal and actually write your entries so you can see it and spend a little bit more time. But what I have found that after I've done that exercise a pretty good bit and I've come to memorize the questions and I've come to think about taking some time to think through how I would answer the questions then they can just be questions that I can do in my mind pretty quickly. But I want to go back up to the traffic accident that I talked about not accident I'm sorry incident that I talked
Thankfully, it wasn't an accident. Although the way I was acting, Alex, it could have been an accident. That was the grace of God. It wasn't running somebody off the road so they don't get in front of me. But you know, the first question arrest me immediately. Am I reacting against actual sin? I mean, no, no, this woman was not sinning. She had to get over. Are my desires for God's kingdom or my kingdom? Well, clearly it's for my kingdom. Like I've got a place I need to be. I've got a time schedule.
alex_kocher (29:36.112)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (29:44.115)
Yes.
alex_kocher (29:53.843)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (29:57.709)
Hmm
alex_kocher (30:02.242)
Right.
brenda_payne (30:03.23)
my way and plus I don't know there's something in that moment that just that little part of me that goes and you will not get ahead of me by one car because you might get to that light and get through it and I'm going to miss the turn light. Right. And then is my anchor company by Godly qualities and expressions clearly in this place. It's not. And isn't it interesting in this situation, my anger is directed towards someone, but that person doesn't even know it. You know what I'm saying? Like this is all happening in my own heart and in my car.
alex_kocher (30:14.005)
Mm-hmm
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (30:30.802)
Right, yeah.
brenda_payne (30:33.19)
my mind. Now they clearly can see I'm not going to let them in, but they have no idea the story I'm telling myself and the amount of sinful anger that this is producing for me and how much sin I'm actually in. Alright, then the next example I just wanted to get in, I know you deal with this a lot as well and that's just meeting women who are in abusive or emotionally destructive relationships and how we have real righteous anger. So we're listening to a woman's story, I'm thinking a woman who just came in this week to see me.
alex_kocher (30:42.804)
Right.
alex_kocher (30:52.563)
Bye.
brenda_payne (31:03.21)
50s had never shared the story before begins to talk about, um, she came in for one thing, but then we start talking about her relationships. She starts downloading about her husband and she just used the words cruel and indifferent to describe him. And I felt Alex, like as I began to ask her, well, what is cruel and indifferent look like? And we began to have this conversation. Oh, I just felt my heart starting to race. I could feel my face getting flushed. Like I was beginning to have a reaction. And so when I asked the question, and I was like, okay, I'm going to ask you a question
alex_kocher (31:23.685)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (31:31.022)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (31:33.15)
Am I reacting against actual sin? Absolutely. And this is not about my desire. This is about the desire for God's kingdom. I know how God wants his girls treated. I know how husbands are supposed to interact with their wives. I know what the Bible says about oppressive and oppressors and those who are oppressed. And so then the only other question really in this situation is my anger accompanied by godly qualities and expressions. And let me just say
alex_kocher (31:33.422)
Thank you. Thank you.
alex_kocher (31:39.163)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (31:46.463)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (32:03.43)
particular occasion they were but there have been some moments that I've been in counseling and I have said some things that definitely exemplified a less gracious way of dealing with somebody who you know is mistreating someone and would be much more harsh maybe even occasionally you know about a bad word or two so it doesn't always I think this is just a good illustration of where we can have really righteous anger and we can even
alex_kocher (32:07.922)
Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (32:19.243)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (32:33.89)
deal with it in a righteous way which in this case was going to be self-control to not you know lose it on the husband he's not even in the room and to help the wife move toward Christ toward trusting him toward worship and yeah just as opposed to unrighteous and unrighteous response
alex_kocher (33:00.702)
Yeah, and I will say Brenda, I think that's a great example to also show that anger can actually be for the building up of other people because I've been in that situation myself and just by saying the words, what you're telling me is making me very angry. It actually sometimes gives a woman in the case of who we're counseling permission to call something unrighteous herself because she sees that.
brenda_payne (33:15.112)
Yes.
brenda_payne (33:26.05)
Correct.
alex_kocher (33:30.722)
I think there sometimes the righteous expression of our anger is to name that what we're seeing is wrong and it makes me angry. And I've seen that give women permission to name what's happening to them the way God would name it. And so anger in that case is a good energy that can produce good change.
brenda_payne (33:46.414)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (33:52.37)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, my final example is just in the realm of parenting. And I'm sure if you have children, you've experienced this as well. But when my children were disobedient, disrespectful in some way, it would make me angry. And I used to hear people say, don't discipline your children in anger. And I would say, I have to be angry to discipline my children. Like there has to be, there's no way. It was very difficult
alex_kocher (34:20.311)
you
brenda_payne (34:22.53)
to discipline my children. And so the only way that I'm going to be moved to discipline them is I'm going to have to have a measure of anger. But the anger needs to be godly anger and it needs to be expressed in a godly way. And so the first thing I'm going to ask myself when my child is disrespectful or misbehaving is am I reacting to actual sin? Sometimes a child is just being childish. They're just doing what a child does. Sometimes they're being foolish. And so I'm going to have to discern that.
alex_kocher (34:26.308)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (34:38.223)
Right.
alex_kocher (34:45.774)
Hmm
alex_kocher (34:48.862)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (34:52.35)
And then, you know, are my desires for God's kingdom or my kingdom? A lot of times I may have actually been motivated. My anger may have come from a place of righteousness. They're being disrespectful. But now what's happening is I'm really focused on the fact that I'm going to have to stop and deal with this. And that is now adding to my anger and adding fuel to the fire because I'm more concerned about what I have going on right now and how this child and their issue has become a distraction for me.
alex_kocher (35:11.122)
Yeah. Yes.
brenda_payne (35:22.35)
focused on his agenda of training and loving and directing and guiding my child. And then finally is my angered accompany by godly qualities and expressions. And you know, again, that's just one of those situations. I may have righteous anger and I may express it in really good ways or I may not. And I think that's, you know, as we're talking about this, we're not going to, we're going to mess up a lot. We're not always going to get this right.
alex_kocher (35:23.345)
Yes.
brenda_payne (35:52.35)
framework is really helpful. But I know when my children were little and I really did sin a lot against them. I have, you know, journals, thankfully the Lord has made little children where they don't remember a whole lot when they're little. But I have journals where I would write about, you know, just being so upset that I had spoken too harshly or that I had yelled or I had over corrected in some way. And, you know, as I just, as I look back, one of the things the Lord really impressed upon me was just continuing to go
alex_kocher (35:52.823)
Yes, we are.
brenda_payne (36:22.41)
children and to confess and repent and ask forgiveness when that happened over and over and over and over again. I did it a lot, but there's grace in that. There's grace in that humility. God begins to bring about a change and particularly when you have to look in your little one's face again for the tenth time today because you snapped and had a short temper and you were angry and you were sinfully angry or you were righteously angry and you expressed it in an unrighteous way.
alex_kocher (36:32.127)
Mm-hmm
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (36:41.603)
Mm-hmm
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (36:51.962)
Yeah, and the only reason, the only way that we can do that, Brenda, and to humble ourselves in front of our children is if we really ground ourselves in the gospel, particularly that in Christ, we, God sees us as perfectly expressing our anger, not because we do it, but because he did it. And it's only a forgiveness in that we can confess, right? So when we know that we are forgiven because Christ perfectly expressed his anger for us,
brenda_payne (37:10.85)
Thank you.
brenda_payne (37:14.492)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (37:21.822)
can go and make repair with our children, with our spouses, with our friends. And so I think we always have to, I think we sometimes remember that Jesus has a perfect record on our behalf but we don't think of it in the particular. And in anger, I think it's a great, any place it's good to remember in the particular, but in anger, I think we can really stand in all of who Jesus is because we realize how quickly anger moves us to react
realize that he experienced anger and yet he did not sin is like that is unfathomable to me and it moves me to worship and it moves me to change my desires to be more like his and it allows me again to ground myself in the truth that I'm forgiven and accepted and I can ask for forgiveness from other people. So when we sin in our anger either by having unrighteous anger or we're righteous
brenda_payne (37:54.34)
Hmm
brenda_payne (37:57.851)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (38:21.922)
and express in sinful ways. Like we do need to repent and we need to ask forgiveness of that but we first have to ground ourselves in that in that gospel truth that Jesus was perfectly gentle in his anger that he was that he was meek and that I think it's Paul trip that says that gentleness says that the thing that's being worked on is not damaged in the process and so even though Jesus had energy in his anger and action behind it it was not an energy
brenda_payne (38:42.934)
Mm-hmm, I love that.
brenda_payne (38:49.25)
Thank you. Bye.
Hmm. Hmm.
alex_kocher (38:52.082)
that damaged others. It was always for their good. So one of the things that we wanted to do in this series was continue to talk about the topic and give tools and so we have the handout to work through these three helpful questions. But we also want to give a tool that addresses our bodies because we are both body and soul and the interaction of body and soul is particularly felt in anger. As we've said we feel our physical response to anger
And so one of the things I just want to encourage people to do for their bodies is that anger is energy and it does give us a sense of a heightened awareness and a heightened need to do. And so get outside, take a walk, exercise, like physical activity as a way to work through and process our anger, I think is really a good tool. And I think it helps us to be able to clear our
brenda_payne (39:51.85)
Thank you. Thank you.
alex_kocher (39:52.082)
through these questions of what part of this is righteous and what is unrighteous and how can I react in a righteous way when my energy begins to be used up physically. I really think my brain starts to calm down and act a little bit more rationally so I just encourage people to use the energy of anger to propel them into motion and allow that emotion to calm their spirit and then work through these questions.
brenda_payne (40:01.353)
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (40:04.662)
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (40:17.47)
Yeah, that's good. And I think that just reminds us that so often these questions may not be able to be accessed in the moment of anger. And that's why coming back later, taking the time, being intentional to sit with your thoughts, to sit with the Lord, to answer the questions either verbally with someone else to process or in your journal with the Lord has to be a priority. It just has to. I think too often, Alex, we want change. I don't know.
alex_kocher (40:26.667)
Uh-huh.
brenda_payne (40:46.99)
change to come instantaneous and it doesn't sanctification is a process where we are cooperating with God to become holy and heart and conduct and so that cooperation takes energy and you know we've got all this energy toward anger well let's put some energy toward how are we going to use our anger in the future to bring about the worship of God and so hopefully this tool will
alex_kocher (40:51.505)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (40:58.943)
run.
alex_kocher (41:04.784)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (41:16.85)
And as always, we believe that these tools are for us first. And that's one of the reasons we like to share our own examples to show that we are not above these things, that we've been walking with Jesus a long time and yet we're still wrestling through all of the issues that we're sharing. But also, hopefully these tools can become a way that you can instruct someone else. I think about your sphere of influence. These were some questions that I began to teach my children when they were little, like when they got angry, you know? And Paul and I.
alex_kocher (41:23.406)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (41:43.722)
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (41:46.97)
marriage, I think it's a great way to kind of come back and evaluate. And hopefully as you practice, they become more just a part of your normal thinking that when anger, situation does come up and you recognize that you're getting angry, then now it just becomes something you can do in your mind. So simply, and at that point, I think is when you really begin to see some progress and transformation. And so we want that for our listeners. We want that for the people, our listeners,
are influencing and yeah so we just hope that this is useful.