Appropriate Anger

After Cain has become angry and downcast that his offering was rejected by God, Genesis 4: 6-8 reads, “Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.' Now Cain said to his brother Abel, 'Let’s go out to the field.' While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.”

Before Cain kills Abel, God asks Cain directly why he is angry and downcast. One of the things you to notice in these verses is that God, when Cain’s anger comes up, doesn't say to Cain that he should stop feeling that emotion and feel something else instead. He asks him why he's feeling that way. He wants Cain to identify it, and then he wants him to examine the root of it, because this examination often reveals our anger is not righteous. 

Sometimes anger can be righteous when it has a purpose. We see in the Gospels that Jesus even got angry in certain situations, but yet he remained sinless. So anger does not equate sin or wrongdoing. Anger can have a purpose. It can be protective, but most of the anger that we feel and struggle with is not like this. However, stopping to reflect on what’s really going on is hard to do when you're angry, because when you're angry, you don't feel like pausing and asking questions. You don't feel like looking over your shoulder and checking your blind spot. Cain didn’t do this and it led him to sin in a heartbreaking way. 

DISCUSSION/REFLECTION QUESTION: When is a time that your anger has been righteous or protective? How did the results of this anger differ from times when you anger wasn’t righteous?