June 24, 1947. Mount Rainier, Washington.
A private pilot and businessman named Kenneth Arnold looked out his cockpit window and spotted nine mysterious, gleaming objects zipping through the air in a tight formation at mind-boggling speeds. When trying to describe their chaotic, undulating flight pattern to a reporter, he noted that they moved “like a saucer skipping across water.”
Arnold never actually claimed he saw an alien spaceship, and he described the physical shapes of the objects as crescent-shaped rather than round. In fact, modern researchers suggest he was likely looking at a flock of American white pelicans flying at high altitude. However, the media ran wild with his descriptive phrase, twisted his words, and birthed a global phenomenon overnight: the “flying saucer” AKA UFO.

UFO

Underrated although it is the one of THE strongest part of what makes us human.

Forbidden due to people’s lack of understanding its complex nature.

Overlooked because it is considered easier to disregard rather than sit through the discomfort it instantly brings. It’s untapped potential just sits at the surface boiling, desperately waiting to be recognize for it’s immense ability to change course of history.

The UFO

Anger.

*gasps*

I know I know. Anger is like the black sheep of the family. At times, the sore thumb that sticks out, The ugly duckling that no one considers,  The “good for nothing” Nazerene…we can keep going here. I mean, can anything good come from Nazreth? Can anything good come from anger?

Just like the reporters that ran with the strange sighting story, anger tends to have that reputation that leaves people with such confusion and mystery and the question of “what was THAT?”

Seriously though,  For the longest time, I used to think anger had only one face to it. One that needed to be completely avoided, and even uprooted from my life entirely. I saw anger like a fire destroying a harvest—something you need to rush toward with a water hose to extinguish right away.
*tssss* ahhh, much better… right?
Well, I am here to present the side of anger many seem to miss. Because as it turns out, just as there are two sides to a coin, anger is exactly the same.

Anger is a tool
A few years ago, a brother in Christ who has now gone home to be with the Lord was teaching the Word of God on anger. For most believers, when we hear that word, the scriptures that instantly come to mind are: “In your anger do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26) and “You must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger…” (Colossians 3:8). This is all true, and it must be understood in the context it was written.
Today, however, I want us to think of anger as a tool. An indicating tool.
Oftentimes when we are angry, it is a sign that something is fundamentally wrong. Something is wrong in our minds, our surroundings, or the world in general. But when you use a tool for a specific purpose, its capacity to cause harm is just as high as its ability to do good.
Take a knife, for example. Your kitchen wouldn’t be complete without one. In order to prepare a meal or even a quick snack, you need at least one knife in the house. With that knife, you dice onions, slice bread, and cut up fruit (and sometimes get that onion-tasting fruit we all “love”. I mean nothing beats a watermelon that tastes like onion.*sheds a tear* yumm). You can even use it to pry open a package if you don’t have scissors lying around.
Yet, with that exact same knife, as we see on almost every crime show, people get hurt and lives are lost. Anger, my friends, is no different. How you use it is where everything lies.
When was the last time you were angry? What was it about, and how did you react? Did you use that anger to bring about a good change? or did you use it to wound someone?

As disciples of Christ, the evil so prevalent in this world is meant to stir a righteous anger in us. It should drive us to our knees and equip us as instruments of God’s righteousness. Unless we get out of our “lala land” Christianity which in no way reflects the Kingdom of God and allow our hearts to feel the discomfort of anger, we will never truly put ourselves in the shoes of our hurting neighbors.
So, do you see which side of anger I’m standing on today? Yes, you guessed it. The good side. The misunderstood side. The Underrated, Forbidden, Overlooked (UFO) side. But there are a few things I want to add before we wrap this up.

*sigh*

Such a strange, strange emotion it is: anger. You would think by now, human beings who have existed for thousands of years would have it all figured out. But no. We are still trying to grasp the complexity of this villainized emotion.

For now, I will leave you give you some time to soak up all the information laid out about this new face of anger that we may have never even paused to consider. Next, we will be looking more into the soft landing for this UFO we all have a love and hate relationship with (or is it just hate?) *shrugs shoulder* Meh. I will leave that for you to decide.

Stay tuned. It only gets better from here.