Powlison, David. Good and Angry : Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness. Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2016.

I use to think I was a patient person… and then I had kids. They are able to find buttons I didn’t know I had and press them over, and over, and over again! As a result, there are days when I am little better than a bear with a sore head in my relationship with them. Why is that? How could it be that I could get so cranky with these little people I love so much?

In his book, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining and Bitterness, David Powlison takes us on a guided tour of anger and its cousins. Drawing on his experience as a counsellor, together with biblical insights, Powlison presents anger as being capable of both good and bad expression. Insofar as it emanates from a worldview that is God-centered, as exemplified by Jesus Christ, it is constructive and good; but where it issues from selfishness and idolatry it causes great harm.

The strengths of Powlison’s book include his careful differentiation between righteous and unrighteous anger; the way he identified unrighteous anger as a sin problem; and his clear presentation of how the sin problem can only be overcome by means of the gospel and not some twelve-step program. On the other hand, I felt that he could have spent more time rooting what he was saying in Scripture so that people could feel the force of this biblical worldview.

As for me and my kids, Powlison’s analysis is spot on: “Your buttons say something very significant about what rules you.” May God grant me the grace to be gracious!