The Things that Make You Angry Reveals Your Idols

Anger is the result of love. It is energy for defense of something you love when it is threatened. If you don’t love something at all, you are not angry when it is threatened. If you love something a little, you get a little angry when it is threatened. If something you love is an ‘ultimate concern,’ if it is something that gives you meaning in life, then when it is threatened you will get uncontrollably angry. When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, is is essentially an ‘idol,’ something you are actually worshiping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains. Therefore if you find that, despite all the efforts to forgive, your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, ‘What am I defending? What is so important that I cannot live without?’ It may be that, until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger.--Tim Keller

Anger: A Major Clue to the Idols of the Heart

All too often we are like Diotrephes, whom the New Testament describes as someone "who likes to put himself first" (3 John 9). But when we put ourselves on the throne, God is no longer the God of our lives; he is only another one of our servants. Rather than seeking his kingdom, we expect him to advance ours. Sooner or later we will get upset with him for not doing whatever it is that we expect him to do for us. Typically we get angry when we do not get what we want, which makes anger one of the best clues to our own private idolatries. When we are angry at the world or angry with God, it is almost always because we have the wrong person on the throne (Phillip G. Ryken, Commentary on 1 Kings, 10).