What Are You Angry About Today?
Psalm 37 and the faith that suppresses rage
My annual Bible reading plan had me in Psalm 37 last week. This is a favorite psalm of many, and for good reason. My love for this psalm was renewed when I re-read it this time around.
I won’t post the whole psalm here—you can go read it if you want to read the whole thing—but here are the first 15 verses (with a few of my favorites bolded):
Of David.
Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
be not envious of wrongdoers!
For they will soon fade like the grass
and wither like the green herb.Trust in the LORD, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him, and he will act.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday.Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
For the evildoers shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land.In just a little while, the wicked will be no more;
though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace.The wicked plots against the righteous
and gnashes his teeth at him,
but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he sees that his day is coming.The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows
to bring down the poor and needy,
to slay those whose way is upright;
their sword shall enter their own heart,
and their bows shall be broken.
Psalm 37 hit with new force this time around, and for a minute I think it took me a minute to figure out why. But honestly, I think it just comes down to two factors:
We have no shortage of evils about which to be angry today.
We have no shortage of people telling us to be angry at the evil all around us today.
What are you angry about today?
Are you angry about something the President of the United States posted on social media?
Are you angry at some kind of unjust practice you’ve observed in the human resources department in your company?
Are you angry at the lengths to which people will go to deny the sanctity of unborn life?
Are you angry at some arbitrary rule an administrator in your child’s school has decided to enforce out of the blue?
Are you angry at the perpetuation of war in the Middle East?
What are you angry about?
Are you angry about real injustices being committed at a global scale to the detriment of countless people?
Are you angry about the perpetuation of pet peeves that pile up and derail the contentment you’ve found throughout the day?
What is it? Does it feel small and personal? Does it feel big and global? Does it feel within your grasp to affect or totally and frustratingly out of your control?
Here’s the thing: it doesn’t really matter what it is.
The bigger question is this:
Do you have faith that God can handle the object of your anger?
Do you have the faith to suppress your rage, no matter how righteous it may be?
Do you have courage to trust that the God of your salvation is also a God of justice?
To suppress rage is not to be ignoring or uncaring. To suppress rage is to have faith that God is just and good and sovereign.
It isn’t (always) wrong to be angry—“righteous anger” is real. But, sometimes we are angry and wrong at the same time. Sometimes we can be in the wrong even if we are angry about the right things.
But something I gleaned from David in Psalm 37 this time around is that it is never wrong to set aside our rage in favor of faith. It takes immense courage and humility to take whatever rage we have against evildoers—of the local or cosmic variety—and entrust their fates to the God of the universe.
What are you angry about today?
Let go of it and entrust it to the God of perfect justice.
Have the courage to turn your fists into open hands that are ready to receive the goodness of God.
