God Releases Me From Anger. He Restores My Joy

This post is about anger in America and the world from my perspective. Some people have been angry all of their lives, many of them with good reasons. If they read this post they will call me naive (or worse). But I believe that something unique is happening now. The level of anger and despair is at an all-time high. In this post I am asking the question — why?

Tuesday, May 2, 2017, 0745: I woke up this morning, looked through my bedroom window, and saw sunlight streaming through the bright green leaves. Judy and I are driving to the airport about 90 miles away to meet a friend from Africa for several hours as he passes through. I am talking on the phone to another friend in Houston for about an hour earlier in the morning.

Thoughts of the day flashed through my mind as I pulled the curtains back in the bedroom. In that instant I felt – joy. Not just excitement about what the day held for me, but a deeper sense of well-being and peace, a sense of hope and promise. I have experienced this emotion often in the past, even in the midst of pain and chaos. Joy is deeper than happiness.

But as soon as I recognized joy, it was gone, replaced by a general sense of foreboding, sadness, even dread. This other emotion was not overwhelming; it was just a background emotion that I recognized I have been living with for at least 6 months. It was the flash of joy that made the other more obvious. I guess I have been like the frog in the pot of water that is slowly being brought to a boil. You don’t realize the water is getting hotter until you hop out.

Anyway, Christians (like me) are supposed to be joyful. “The joy of the Lord is my strength”, according to the Bible. So why has that joy mostly disappeared? That was the question on my mind as I went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. On my way I picked up my cell phone to catch up on Gmail, Facebook, and Google News. As I reached for the phone I felt a heightened sense of the dread that had been haunting me. After reading Facebook and Google News (especially articles from Huffington Post, Washington Post, New York Times, Slate, the Hill, and others) the dread and sadness deepened.

And then one word popped into my mind – “hate”. Hate is a strong word that means intense or passionate dislike. ( I think that some people in our culture are using the word ‘hate’ as a synonym for “you disagree with me”,  ‘elevating’ disagreement to a ‘hate speech’, and diminishing the real meaning of the word).  Hate is usually accompanied by anger. Maybe what I was sensing was my response to an emotion somewhere between hate and anger, that I have been seeing on social media and Internet news. Whatever it was, I realized I had been fed a steady diet of it for months, especially since I started reading Facebook posts. And to some extent I have allowed myself to take it personally. Or maybe the spirit behind this darkness is beginning to weigh down my heart. Whatever it is, significant numbers of Americans are angry at, and some even ‘hate’, those who disagree with them – for example the Americans who voted for the ‘other’ candidate. Like me!

I am a Christian, and as you can tell from my photo on the home page of this blog, I am an older white male. I am politically conservative. I worked for an oil company for 30 years and now, in a time when political activists have called for the ‘end of oil’, that profession is unpopular. To make me even more unpopular, I live in North Carolina. I oppose abortion, believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, and in this age of Global terrorism believe that America has the right and responsibility to control our borders, which means we can limit immigration. To make me really persona non grata, I believe the Bible is the infallible Word of God, that sin is real, and that we are all called to repent.

To a certain segment of America, I am the “bad guy”; the ‘one’ ‘they’ love to hate, for multiple reasons depending on who you talk to. I am the ‘other’ who has to be gotten out of the way or run over to make room for the new world order. I am ‘the problem’.

So yes, I think we are living in a culture of hate and anger, resentment, and bitterness, coupled with an extraordinary level of selfishness. Anger has been a part of American culture for a long time. It just seems to me that we have entered a new era of division and bitterness.

Where is all of this hatred and anger coming from? I have not seen anger on this scale during my lifetime since the late 1960s and early 1970s. This is more than disagreement. This is widespread, blatant animosity, the kind of anger-hatred most Americans directed at their enemies in WW 2 or the Cold War. This venom is flowing from both ends of the political continuum – liberal progressives who have a ‘one world’ plan and hate anything that opposes that point of view, and right-wing conservatives who stand for radical nationalism and hate anyone who speaks against their agenda. And Americans, who intentionally or not, align themselves with some variation of these two end-members, fed by hysterical and usually biased media outlets whose main objectives seem to be chaos and disorder.

Why such an elevated level of hate, anger, unforgiveness, fear, anxiety, and even despair now?

Most people live and operate in the world that they can see, hear, and touch. For them this is their only reality. But there is another world around us that is just as real – a ‘heavenly’ reality. Some call it “the unseen real”. I think in this dimension a world war has been raging for a decade or so, and it is intensifying today. This war is being played out in the minds, hearts, attitudes, and actions of 100s of millions of people around the world, most of whom are not even aware that they have been drawn into this fight. It is a war being fought between the powers of evil and  good – between satan and God. The weapons of this war include extreme anger, fear; and unforgiveness, which has morphed in many hearts into hatred. And in some places literal war and persecution. (At the same time, the world is seeing people turning to Christ in unprecedented numbers).

Many do not believe in the supernatural, especially a supernatural power that can control or influence their minds – it is foolishness to them. But there are many who do understand what is happening – some on the side of darkness, others the side of the Light. The latter are the hope of the world. The war is not against flesh and blood – but against these powers of evil that have put a shroud over our nation and the world. The root problem is not hatred and anger. At the root are demonic spirits of death, chaos, and narcissism that seek to rule and reign in so many hearts today.

And to be honest, it is defiling to be touched by this mess. Worse than stealing my joy, I am getting sucked into the maelstrom of anger and anxiety. I find myself beginning to dislike those whose anger is directed at me, or at least whom I perceive to be angry with me, or who are different from me. And so the downward spiral continues. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy. First he steals joy and peace. Then he literally kills life and liveliness. Finally, he destroys relationships – between individuals and between humans and God.

What can I do about this? I can live both defensively and offensively.

I can begin by praising Jesus each day. Praising Him pushes back the spirits of death and chaos, which cannot exist in an atmosphere of praise.

Next, I can renounce the spirit of death in my heart by using the power and authority given to me in the name of Jesus, and command it “to go”. Often! As this spirit is cast out, peace can begin to reign in my heart.

I must repent of my own anger and unforgiveness. This clears the way for God to transform those parts of my heart, which have been hardened. When God, by His Spirit, leads me to a place where I can begin to love those with whom I disagree, my joy will return. I can return to my true source of value – Jesus, and stop looking for value in the things of the world. The latter is the way of the offendable heart.

I can receive spiritual and emotional healing and cleansing by the blood of Jesus and power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, closing the doors that let the enemy into my heart in the first place.

Then I can stop reading defiling words on media and Facebook posts. Instead, I can pick up my Bible more often. Jesus says, “The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are life.” His words = life. His life = more joy, peace, hope, and power.

Finally, I can go on the offense by unleashing the ultimate weapon against evil. I can pray, interceding on behalf of the world, our nation, our states, our cities, towns, neighborhoods, and individuals as God leads. I can pray for evil’s cloak of deception to be torn away. I can pray for revival to break out around the world. Or something else, as God directs; but only as He calls me to pray.

Oh. Last but not least. I can strive to love the people around me, beginning with a greater love for God. If Jesus can love me, then in Christ who is living in me, I should be able to love almost anyone. That is how we put hate, if that is what it is, behind us forever.

I am not powerless against the forces of darkness that seem to be sweeping over our country and the world. Has my joy disappeared? Am I living without the same hope and peace I had in the past? OK. I can do something about that. I can begin to walk once again in His victory, with Christ at the center of my heart, remembering who I am in Him, drawing on the Kingdom power and authority given to all men and women of true faith. I can release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world to push back the darkness, take back the territory, and defeat the power of evil —  for every nation, tribe, and tongue. I can remember each day that in Christ I am already victorious because He won the victory with His death. That is something to be joyful about.

Trying to stay focused on Him,

John

• PS. I suppose some would call what is happening in America now the latest installment in the ‘culture wars’. I was reminded by my fried Joey today of this verse in Ephesians 1: “The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world. The world is peripheral to the church” (Message translation). In other words, “the church is not peripheral to the culture. The culture is peripheral to the church”. This truth needs to guide all of our ministries. To the extent we forget this or don’t believe it, we have taken Jesus out of the center of our lives. And without Jesus we have no power over the darkness. We all ignore this at our peril!