Some people struggle with anger more than others...but everyone deals with it. Anger is part of the sin nature that every human being is born with. When sin entered the world and mankind was separated from God the problem of anger in the heart of man was birthed. As a parent you might have come to the realization that you have one or more children who has a significant struggle with anger. What do you do? How do you respond? How is the gospel of Jesus skillfully applied in your parenting?
Let me start off by reminding parents that your calling is to make disciples of Jesus and help them to respond to the gospel by faith. Your calling is not to scrub their garments clean of sinful anger. You do not have the power to do this. Only Jesus does. What parents can do is help their child to see their sinful responses of anger and then hold out the hope of Jesus Christ. With enough skill and help from the Holy Spirit parents can winsomely help their child to see that Jesus is superior to their responses. Again, parents must remember they are not called to end their child’s anger. If this is neglected, you might respond with your own sinful anger in the face of your child’s sinful anger. This wont be helpful.
Before I make three main points about anger let me also point out that not all anger is sinful anger. God is righteously angry at sin and his people rightly bear the image of God when they share in his righteous anger. Part of mankind’s sinful anger isn’t only getting angry at the wrong things but the lack of anger at the right things.
With that, here are four observations about your child’s sinful anger:
Sinful Anger is about a Lack of Trust
Those who get angry sinfully are dealing with trusting that God is perfect in all his ways (Dt. 32:2-4). Instead of trusting God and his timing and his wisdom they are actively placing more trust in their own wisdom and ability to exact the results they want to achieve. James addresses this proclivity when he says the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1:20). In other words, the sinful response of anger is always trying to produce something and it is under-trusting God’s ability and over-trusting their own ability exact a certain outcome.
Sinful anger is about a Lust for Control
The person struggling with sinful anger needs to see that they have issues with control. They have outcomes that must be realized. They have ideas about timing that must be taken seriously. They have expectations that must be fulfilled. They have rules that are required to be kept. A person who struggles with control will easily spill over into sinful anger. Sinful anger is often the sacrifice made at the altar of the idol of control, it is the wrath poured out at anything that dares to challenge master controller. Parents helping children deal with this must help their child to see their lust for power and the ways they are bowing down to the false idol of control. Having a desire for control is reasonable, it can even be productive but the demand for it carries the empty promises that if they can just control outcomes then they can have security and ease they long for. Parents must help their child to see that they need to learn to trust God in his timing and wisdom. They need to help their child realize that God is sovereign, in charge of all things and they can take refuge in his ability to bring about his purposes according to the counsel of his will (Ephesians 1:11). Patience that honors God grows in the soil of a deeper trust in God’s perfection and God’s will that can never be thwarted (Job 42:2). The gospel of Christ pays the penalty for the way your child tries to be God but fails and restores them to the God who never fails them!
Sinful Anger is about being Deceived
To build on something that was stated in the previous point, it is important for parents to realize that your child’s sinful anger is driven by something that is deceiving them. Where is the deception? It is in the fact that they truly believe that if they can simply control a situation and steer it to a desired outcome they will be happy. This is to neglect that God is in favor of our eternal joy and to falsely believe he isn’t. Your child is deceived when they think they can control a situation and they are deceived to think that they know the pathway to joy apart from God (Psalm 37:4). The reason Scripture calls for trust as the pathway to joy is because it assumes mortals really don’t know what that pathway is. Sinful arrogance assumes self reliance when it comes to the pursuit of joy. They are deceived parents must model Christ who endured the cross for the joy that was set before him (Heb. 12:2).
Sinful Anger is about a Skewed Sense of Judgment and Morality
Make no mistake. Anger always surfaces because a person’s sense of justice is crossed. Your children, no matter how young, have a sense of justice. Are you aware of it? Do you have compassion for them in this? A child’s sense of justice is a positive thing but has two problems: First, their sense of justice is immature. It isn’t formulated very well, especially not according to reality or God’s truth. They think of their chores as an injustice, especially when they perceive them to be harder than their siblings. With this parents must be careful to be compassionate for their immaturity. Saying things like “oh just let me tell you what is unfair” only models sinful anger in the face of sinful anger. Children need parents to model compassion and instruction in their immaturity (Psalm 103:13-14).
Second, a child’s sense of justice is distorted by sin (as is the case with all humanity). Everyone has a sense of right and wrong, fair and unfair because they are created in the image of God. Yet, everyone’s sense of right and wrong is distorted because sin has cause individual desire to be more central than God’s purposes. In other words, a sinner’s sense of justice will lead them to be more aroused in anger because their desires were not met than if God’s name is defamed. Just think of the things your child gets angry about, it probably doesn't include anger that the glory of God being ignored. Parents must respond to children with the grace of Christ, showing compassion for their limitations and the sin nature they inherited but they also need to point out the ways their sense of justice is distorted by sin. Children need gentle help seeing the ways they are deeply impacted by their sin nature. They need to see that Jesus was unlike them, placing God the Father’s glory above his personal desires. Your child needs to be instructed to look to Christ not only for the power to change but so that their sense of justice is anchored in God's wisdom.
There is more that can be said about anger and definitely tied to many other heart issues. For now, I trust this will give you some insights into the ways parents can shepherd their children through the heart issue of anger. In the end, our children need the good news of the gospel. They need forgiveness for the way they have distorted the image of God. They need God’s sense of justice as it is clarified on the cross. They need to be reconciled to the living God so their greatest desire and God’s greatest desire will be one and the same: that God will be holy in all the earth. Parents, grow in your compassion for this struggle in your kids. Grow in your confidence for the power of the gospel and by all means, don’t give in to your own sinful anger to combat their sinful anger. Your job is to point them to Christ in the confidence that they will respond to the gospel in faith.
In Christ,
Pastor Kevin
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