I do like how The Message translates it:
"Post this at all intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God's righteousness doesn't grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life." - James 1:19-21 The Message
It's so easy to pick and choose fragments of the Bible, apply them in a shame-based way, in an attempt to modify outward behavior, and to polish my appearance of being "godly". I've done this towards myself and others. It doesn't work for long, and it certainly doesn't glorify God or fool Him.
I've been accused of being quick to anger, and why does it sting? Because there is a portion of me that agrees with it, and is covered with shame. When I receive the accusation of being "quick to anger", it agrees with the shame I've internalized, instead of disarming it with the truth, which sets me free.
So, I go to the Word of God to help me discern the truth...and this is where I'm at in that process...
Anger is not a sin. Having a feeling, whatever it is, is not a sin. If it was, then God set me up to fail when He created me to experience feelings as I relate to myself and others, including Him. That is not the God I follow.
The God I follow says that when he saw all that he created, including mankind/womankind, he said it was very good (Genesis 1:31).
When sin entered into creation, it changed how mankind/womankind judged his or her own reflection in the mirror. Before this event occurred though, Adam and Eve had to operate out of a false and distorted picture of God. The serpent successfully created that distorted picture of God, and the rest is history.
When I buy into the pervasive lie that many religions (including the Christian religion) purport that God is primarily about behavior modification, I will remain dead inside due to shame, not made alive by the truth that sets me free. This includes behaviors that appear to represent "anger" and can be shamed through me misapplying verses like James 1:19.
Sometimes I try and hide my feelings due to the shame I misinterpret coming from how God wants me to behave in a certain way, and I fall short in. When I do this, I short-circuit God and myself. I am trying to garden myself through shame which leads to hiding, instead of allowing God to garden me, through simply acknowledging before Him where I'm at knowing that with God-there.is.no.room.for.shame.
God desires for me to BE slow to anger, not ACT slow to anger. Why? Because anger isn't the remedy for me walking in harmony with God, myself and others. Don't be so quick to misjudge anger though. Anger can be a powerful ally when it comes to me growing in righteousness, which I define as simply seeing people, places and things as God does. For me, I've been noticing that I'm quicker to acknowledge, sense and own my anger and I see it as a messenger telling me that I'm not seeing ME as I truly am, and the response is me feeling angry. When I deny or ignore this messenger in an attempt to act not easily angered, I'm only fooling and robbing myself from being freed by the truth. When I do see myself as I truly am, even when confronted by another who doesn't, I am not going to be quick to anger, because I'm seeing my reflection in the mirror clearly, not substituting their misinterpretation of me as the truth.
Anger is simply a symptom of deception, not a remedy for it that leads to righteousness, but a symptom that when I acknowledge and attend to, can lead me toward true righteousness.
The truth: I am not an angry person because I am quick to acknowledge the presence of anger within. I used to be a very angry person, and that was when I rarely admitted or acknowledged that I was angry. Instead, I just shamed others and prided myself in not letting them "get to me". Some are much better at this charade, I certainly never was able to ace it.
Now, I am not operating out of anger most of the time, so when anger does present itself, it's very obvious and clear to me, and I'm quick to acknowledge it and search for the truth as a remedy. When I'm not always angry, I'm quicker to sense when I am because it's not my norm. Now, I can more easily acknowledge anger and get to the root of it..which is what James encourages also...
Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you." - James 1:21 NIV
or
"So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life." - James 1:21 The Message
To "be" or "act to be", that is the question. I submit to you the answer to this question is that God desires us to "BE", not to "act to be".
