The Power of Righteous Anger in Prayer

Have you ever heard to angry intercession? Can you pray while you are angry?

Some people are afraid of their anger. I am not. When you surrender all your heart to Jesus and ask Him to use your emotions for His good and His glory, amazing things can happen – even in anger.

The apostle James said, The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. James 5:16-18 NKJV

The effective, fervent prayer – fervency is passion and one form of passion is Anger. Does that disturb you? Is it okay as a Christian to get angry?

There comes a time and a place where the follower of Jesus says to the darkness, “ENOUGH!” This is usually said from a place of desperation to see God’s glory, to see His kingdom expand. It can also come from a heart of deep compassion for someone who is in bondage to darkness.

You might have a situation in your life where you have seen darkness prevail and you are tired of it. You have prayed, you have quoted Scripture, you may have even fasted or gotten counsel from a spiritual leader, but nothing seems to be changing.

Then one day, you snap. You say in your heart, “Enough is enough! It is time for this thing to shift now!!!”

Enough is enough! It is time for this thing to shift now!!!

I don’t think it’s something you can come up with on your own. I think it is a holy, divine disatisfaction given by the Holy Spirit that bubbles up within your spirit.

Imagine Jesus on the day he went to the temple in Jerusalem during the Passover feast (John 2). He had been going for years and had seen what the money changers were doing. He knew people were being oppressed by the high prices they charged for the sacrificial animals that were required to present to the priests. You’ve probably felt like those people when you go to the airport or to a concert and they charge $5 for a bottle of water or $6 for a can of soda. You know you can buy water and soda for much less than that at the grocery store so why are the prices so high? Because they know you are a captive audience and you don’t have any other options – they take advantage of your thirst. After years of seeing the corruption, one day Jesus simply said, “Enough!” and he drove the money changers from the temple with a whip! I don’t think He was smiling and saying, “Bless you” as he used that whip. I think He was likely angry or frustrated – the Bible uses the word “zeal”, another word for passion and action combined.

I have experienced the power of righteous anger in prayer and I have taught other people about it too. It occurred to me that this is probably a foreign concept for many people so I decided to write this post.

So many of us have only seen soulish, unholy anger that it hard for us to imagine what holy anger feels like or looks like. Ask Holy Spirit to show you – there is definitely a place for it. Let me give you some illustrations.

I know a woman who had a husband who was not treating her well and not walking with God. She was raised by a Christian family but she wasn’t really seeking the Lord. She turned her heart to God and the closer she got to Him, the more her husband’s behavior was bothering her. She was getting angry but didn’t want to fight with him – she wanted him to repent and turn to the Lord instead. She knew she was powerless to change her husband herself. She told me she took a child’s plastic bat and went outside to a big tree in their backyard. Whenever she got angry, she would swing at that tree and yell out her prayers to God. “You GET HIM, God! I am tired of his bad behavior!!” She just let it out – focused on God, allowing Him to do whatever He wanted to do to her husband. She told me she did it every time she got really angry at the darkness in his life and she didn’t care who heard her (they lived in a neighborhood where the houses were very close to each other). To make a long story short, God did get ahold of him and he later became completely sold out to God! By the time I knew them, he was the associate pastor of our church. He was a wonderful, gentle shepherd who really gave his life for people to come closer to God, both by his example and his willingness to teach them God’s ways. He is now with the Lord but I will never forget him. Her Angry Intercession brought him into his destiny, I believe. Fervent prayer has real power! Give God praise! 🙂

I have experienced this myself at times. I will feel the enemy pressing down on me, pushing me, oppressing me. I don’t usually know why – I just feel it. The longer it is going on, the more aggravated I get. Finally, something in me says, “ENOUGH OF THIS!” and I start yelling at the devil. Sometimes I have done this while driving (because that happened to be when it hit me to release it). Sometimes I have done this while in my living room (when no one is home so I don’t scare them). I let the anger I feel toward the oppression out of my mouth – I release the passion for righteousness that the Lord has placed in my heart. And I see things shift! If the oppression was specifically targeting me – it lifts and I feel at peace. Sometimes the oppression has been for someone else I am praying for in my family – and I see the shift in their life through their attitude or the choices they are making. It’s really quite stunning when it happens. So don’t be afraid of your anger in prayer – it might just be the exact thing that is needed for breakthrough.

Please pay attention to this fact – when you are praying angry, you are not directing your anger toward a person. You are directing it toward the darkness that is affecting you or someone you love.

There’s a Scripture that has always made me wonder what it means – “… the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” (Matthew 11:12) I discovered that the English translation says “violence” but the original Greek says it more like this: “the kingdom of heaven is forcefully acquired and the forceful are snatching it up”. It’s a deep determination that you are going to get what God has for you and nothing is going to keep you from it!

One key I’ve noticed is that this anger is focused on righteousness. It is not the same as selfish anger, which tends to be focused on you and your own agenda. Does that make sense? You are praying for God’s will to be done, not your own.

So, how about you? Have you ever experienced this righteous anger in prayer? Does this concept bother you? Is it okay to get angry at injustice and then pray that way? What are your thoughts? Please comment below so we can all learn from each other.

By the way, before you are tempted to start quoting verses that tell you to stop being angry, remember that it also says, “Be angry, and do not sin.” (Ephesians 4:26) There is a place for Righteous Anger. Would you rather have a God who doesn’t care when injustice occurs? No, God is angry with wickedness every day (Psalm 7:11) and I’m glad because someone should be! Compassion is “love on fire” and when someone you love is being harmed by the darkness, you get angry. That’s holy anger in Love!

Now go be dangerous to the darkness – release God’s light of Love! 🙂