It is ubiquitous in our lives whether we deal with a stubborn child or co-worker, traffic or burnt food, abortion or war. It is in our DNA to react to something, and that reaction we call anger. But anger is not just any normal reaction; “Anger is the way we react when something we think important is not the way it’s supposed to be.” The Bible is a response book to either man’s anger or God’s anger, and, stay with me here– there is no need for a coin toss to figure out who is righteous and who most often is not. God is infinitely righteous, and his anger is fleeting, but his favor lasts forever. So every time we look at the world, we should be grateful that God is spectacularly unfair: he does not deal with us according to our sins. He would crush us at the first sounds of our frustration and complaints about the weather if he did.

But God is merciful.

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We don’t struggle with the abstract things said in the pulpit; we struggle with their application. So, for example, if I say, “Language is a gift from God that ought to reshape our humanity,” you might respond, “Well, that’s beautiful, Pastor Brito. I am going to quote you on that,” but if I say, “Quit grumbling like a spoiled child,” then, you might say, “Well, that’s way too personal.”

Theology in big categories is necessary to form our application, but we will end our days at the “self-help” section of Barnes & Nobles when we apply without first doing theology. When we apply poorly, we end up with all sorts of weird notions of life—thinking that certain things are acceptable when the biblical reality says otherwise.

The wilderness provided Israel many opportunities to test God’s applications of his law. And inevitably, when God said that he would do something out of the ordinary, what do the people do:

You grumbled in your tents and said, “The LORD hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. Where can we go? Our brothers have made us lose heart. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky.”

In that same passage in Deuteronomy, grumbling is dealt with harshly; it is viewed as distrust in Yahweh to the point where God disallows Israel to enter the land. So, grumbling is not a little thing. Luke says that it’s out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks. The Bible dissects our problems with a lot of clarity when it comes to grumbling, but our functional response is to say, “My children made me angry, and then my car, my cat, my boss, the Democrats, my spouse, my remote control, or whatever else made me angry.” However you parse that out you still have to deal with grumbling in the Bible which is unmistakably a condition of the heart.

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Some people dwell so much on their sinfulness that they find themselves constantly bombarding their status before God with doubt. Am I really a Christian? Am I worthy? These questions are not atypical of those who grow up in environments where internalized Christianity is emphasized. There is a healthy form of self-examination and Paul informs Pastors (II Corinthians 13:5) to encourage parishioners to examine themselves. At the same time, there is a difference between self-examination and introspection that is not often considered.

It is worth mentioning that God cares about our hearts. Out of it can flow the waters of destruction or waters of peace (Ps. 42). The repentant psalmist cries for God to create in him a clean heart and that God would restore the joy of his salvation. Here again, it is important to notice that this salvation has a face, a joyful one.

Martyn-Lloyd Jones wrote that a depressed Christian is not a good apologetic for Christianity. Whether there are physiological components at the root of this depression or not, it is still not a good presentation of the Christian faith. Depression–which must be differentiated from other forms of mental effects– is a form of despising God’s gifts and goodness. All of us are prone to it, and all of us must fight it. Schmemann once wrote that “Of all accusations against Christians, the most terrible one was uttered by Nietzsche when he said that Christians had no joy.” Joy often is not forced, though many have to work hard at it. But most often, it is the natural outflow of a heart saturated with grace.

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