Life Lessons 3: More Than Anger

Picking up where we left them last time, Adam and Eve had just been banished from their perfect home. Life went on, however, and they started a family. Their first two sons were Cain (a farmer) and Abel (a shepherd or herdsman)

An Unacceptable Sacrifice

Time passed and the day came when both sons presented offerings to God, Cain from his produce and Abel from among the firstborn of his animals.

Hebrews 11:4 says, “By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did.” I don’t know exactly why, but God rejected Cain’s offering, and I’m sure whatever the reason it, He was justified. I’m also a little suspicious that, although we might not know why, Cain did… even if he didn’t want to admit it.

Why Are You So Angry?

The Message paraphrases “Cain lost his temper and went into a sulk.” This seems hugely understated in terms of Cain’s reaction; he was a whole lot more than a little miffed and pouty. It does, however, ring an uncomfortably familiar bell as I reflect on my own reactions to being called out… justified or not. While I don’t like any confrontation, I’m much more defensive when being confronted about something I am guilty of than being accused of something I’m not. With a clear conscience, it’s easy to figure someone just got the story mixed up or to blow off the unjustified accusation. It may hurt but not nearly so badly as realizing something I’m ashamed of has been discovered.

Being found out, called out and exposed is unpleasant. My first response, while thankfully less than “fury” (That’s an awfully big word!) is somewhere on the angry spectrum …annoyed, irritated, defensive.

Mostly I’m embarrassed, if I’m being honest (angry with myself) and definitely likely to pout and sulk for awhile (not plotting murder but licking the wounds to my pride and looking for a way to avoid admitting I was wrong.)

Back to Cain

Fury…enough of it to motivate murder is big quantity of a big word. I don’t know how Cain got to where he was or what prompted such extreme rage but he had it… and he was boiling over.

As if things weren’t already going badly enough for Cain, he wasn’t getting any sympathy for his pity party. One of the things I love about God is that, no matter how wildly we act out, He doesn’t get flustered. When someone around me gets in a tizzy, I usually get in one too, but I love how God can be compassionate and gracious without getting sidetracked by our drama. He stays steady and calmly does the right thing. I’d have been tempted to say something in effort to pacify Cain and definitely not say anything to throw fuel on the fire, but not God.

In this case, He says exactly what Cain needs to hear… even if it isn’t what Cain wants to hear.

The Message paints a picture of sin “lying in wait,” “ready to pounce and “out to get you.” Disconcerting but accurate… and it couldn’t be much clearer.

God tells Cain that he has to take control of sin rather than letting sin take control of him. It’s the same with us. Realizing how deeply Satan hates us and how serious he is about “having us, ” we realize that sin isn’t something we can afford to be flippant about.

It also isn’t not something we can be passive about; we have to be serious about Satan because he is more than serious about us.

Obviously Cain failed to heed the warning.

Maybe if he’d been thinking rationally and been more concerned about pleasing God than mending his ego he could have repented and at least avoided making things worse.

The truth doesn’t change because we don’t like it; it doesn’t change because we get mad. For all Cain’s whining, he didn’t get his way. So Cain ought to be angry, but he ought to be angry with himself. Unfortunately, looking in the mirror is just too tough sometimes.

Was he angry at God? Because I’m usually first mad at whomever is calling me out before I ever get around to letting myself be mad at me. It isn’t rational, but when it comes to emotions, what is?

Maybe he is angry at God, but how would you take anger out there?

Anger is different with everyone but one thing is true across the board… unchallenged and unchecked, it definitely blinds and misdirects. Pride, jealousy, and anger create a very deadly concoction and, whoever he could have or should have been angry with, it was Abel who suffered the brunt of Cain’s rage.

Misplaced Anger

It appears that…

all Abel did was offer a pleasing sacrifice. That doesn’t seem to be much of a motive, but apparently it was enough for Cain:

This story gets our attention because it’s extreme… so extreme, in fact, that it’s easy to miss the personal application. I’ve never really thought of myself as being like Cain, but a second look at his story reveals more similarities than I care to admit: pride, jealousy, misplaced anger….

Anger is an interesting subject. We grow up thinking it’s good to be happy, not good to be sad, and downright bad to be angry. “Don’t be mad,” we’re told.

But anger isn’t wrong in and of itself; it has a purpose. It signals something is wrong and moves us to take corrective action. The Bible never says don’t be angry; it says to be angry….and not sin. There’s a big difference. So it isn’t our feelings so much as our actions we are expected to control.

We grow up thinking there must be something wrong with us because someone said it isn’t “nice” to get angry… yet we do. We’re ashamed to admit it to ourselves, let alone anyone else, so instead of learning to recognize and express anger in an appropriate way and to use it constructively, we learn not to acknowledge it at all.

The problem is that anger doesn’t just take a backseat and die quietly. We try to ignore it then wonder why we are anxious and depressed. Or we shove it into an emotional closet… as long as we can anyway, because eventually the closet won’t hold anymore; then we blow up (out of “nowhere” and over “nothing”)

Emotions can be uncomfortable but thankfully God gives us heads to go along with our hearts. Our responsibility, then, is not to deny our feelings and pretend they don’t exist, but to use good judgement about how we express them. We must learn to deal with them honestly instead of letting them run rampant, whether they are running rampant on the inside, unacknowledged and destroying us…. or on the outside, unleashed and unfiltered to the destruction of others.

Another Kind of Murder

Hopefully we are way too civilized to let our distorted anger erupt in physical violence, but how often do we hurt others in emotional ways like lashing out sarcastically, passive -aggressively or in a myriad of other unhealthy ways as we act out our own emotional hurts rather than dealing honestly with them?

Though much more subtle, the psychological damage created when anger is mismanaged and misplaced in these ways is every bit as debilitating, leaving not physical but emotional victims in its wake.

I Just Want to be Happy

Everyone wants to be happy. Wouldn’t it have been good if Cain had been humble enough to look inside, admit his wrong and make peace instead of yielding to jealousy, pride and anger?     

If he thought he’d find relief in getting rid of Abel, he didn’t. Abel might have been a reminder of his failure but he wasn’t the cause of Cain’s misery.

Seeking to find external relief for an internal problem only made things worse.

Evasive Manuevers

After killing Abel, Cain was questioned by God, as his parents had been. Adam and Eve had tried passing the blame; Cain straight out lies. “I don’t know…. am I my brother’s keeper?” (I’m not sure what’s worse… the lie or his flippancy and indifference.)

His evasiveness didn’t work with God because of course, God already knew, just like He’d known with Adam and Eve, and just like He knows with us (whether or not we let ourselves know).

In the interaction between God and man, it becomes immediately apparent, firmly established, and fundamental to understanding Who God is and how relationship with Him works: We can’t fool Him, hide from Him, or escape consequences for disobedience to Him. Interestingly, however, we’ve never quit trying.

As his parents were banished from their home, now Cain is driven from his.

Whether Adam and Eve had been whiny about their consequences (I’m not even GOING there for personal application:( ) we aren’t told, but Cain has plenty of complaints about his:

Apparently human life means more to him when it’s his own in question.

Unfailing Love Part 2

True to His nature, God was merciful to Cain in giving him “not a mark” but a sign to reassure him that God would protect his life.

I don’t know which I find more astounding … Cain’s audacity or God’s grace. The one thing I do know is that neither is any different to this day. There’s no limit to the evil that man is capable of, be it physical or emotional, but also no limit to the mercy and compassion of our loving Father.

Over and over He demonstrates this. It is God being Who God is, a theme that runs the length of the Old Testament and keeps right on going.

You’d think after a while we’d get used to that and wouldn’t be surprised any more, but just as God’s compassion never fails, neither do our amazement and adoration…. What an awesome God!

Until next time,

Kim