I’m not sure about you, but this past month was a rough one. It was filled with moments of grief, curiosity, joy and also a fair amount of anger. Anger at the amount of injustice in this world. At the lack of affordable housing.  Anger at children being kept in cages. Anger at the lack of care for our earth. Anger at those who hold wealth and use it for evil. I found myself angry at God. I wasn’t angry at Him for creating the situation, that ball is in our court as humans who sin, but I found myself angry at God for not taking any action. Why wasn’t He righting these wrongs? 

As a Christian, I felt unsure how to be angry. I thought through the numerous Sunday school classes, Bible studies and church sermons, and remained uncertain. I went to the Bible in search of verses that discussed anger. Two verses stood out to me, the first one reads, “O Lord, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve! O Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult? They pour out their arrogant words; all the evildoers boast. They crush your people, O Lord, and afflict your heritage. They kill the widow and the sojourner, and murder the fatherless; and they say, “The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive.” (Psalm 94: 1-7, The English Standard Version) I felt relieved to find another Christian expressing the same amount of frustration at the injustice enacted in our world and found comfort in God taking vengeance. 

The second verse comes from Proverbs which reads – “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.(Proverbs 6:16-19, The English Standard Version). Our God has feelings. He loves, He hates, He forgives and He gets angry, His feelings are pure and true. My anger is not pure, just today, I got way too mad at a driver who cut me off on my way home from work. But I know our God’s anger is righteous, He is the ultimate judge and knows each of our hearts better than we do. I’m working to turn my anger into action on earth and advocate for those who are experiencing the many injustices in this world.