You will say in that day: “I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me. (Isaiah 12:1 ESV)
Anger and Faith
One of the angriest men in American history was Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was angry at the Yankees, angry at his family, angry at his nation’s leadership, and angry at himself. Once, laying in a hospital bed barely conscious, he jumped out of bed to hunt down the man who had shot him a few hours before. Reportedly he said, “I’ll shoot the man who killed me.” He failed, and reportedly, somehow, the two became friends.
Forrest tried to overcome his anger on his own for many years. In fact, his anger was one of the things about which he was most angry at himself.
Nothing overcame his anger.
Until he turned to Jesus Christ. According to Jack Hurst, in Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography (Knopf, 1993), at the end of his life, Forrest finally learned that God’s anger against His Son on the cross was a good reason to stop being so angry himself. Forrest was able to look back at God’s wrath poured on Jesus. With Christ’s work against sin, including anger, Forrest didn’t really have all that much to be angry about.
Looking back to Christ’s work on the cross allows us to have faith that God will take our anger, too. Unrighteous anger is something that many of us struggle against. God got rid of His righteous anger by killing Jesus. So He has no anger left.
We do not need to have anger left, either.
Take the faith God grants us.