Wrath training is about learning to identify with God’s wrath as an isolated quality. To get you there, the Holy Spirit will begin dropping new perspectives into your brain: perspectives which cause you to start seeing the human race in an entirely different light. Instead of seeing creatures who share your same fragility and flaws, you will begin to see an ocean of creatures who are miserably failing to treat God with the honor and respect He deserves. During wrath training, we completely lose our grip on compassion, mercy, and love for our fellow man. We become consumed with a desire for God to be revered, worshiped, and honored by everything that He makes. So intense is this desire that we feel physically exhausted by it. Fits of rage overtake us when we are confronted with evidence of God being dishonored by the things He has made. The very mention of idolatry makes us want to rip someone’s face off. Because we are being introduced to the Divine view of things, and because the Divine view is a global one, wrath training does not drive us into the sort of petty tantrums we read about in the news in which one man picks up a gun and goes ballistic on his personal enemies. During wrath training, we are not focused on our personal enemies. We are not focused on ourselves at all, but rather on God. HE is the One who we feel jealously furious to protect, and nothing less than global destruction will come close to satisfying us. We want the entire human race to be transferred into Hell NOW. We find ourselves overwhelmed with an intense disgust for every created thing which dishonors God, including ourselves. In certain stages of this training, we can become so detached from our personal viewpoint that we’d even prefer to be in Hell ourselves rather than endure another second of God being dishonored. Suddenly NO ONE is treating God well enough, including ourselves, and this torments us to no end.

Now because God’s wrath is in direct conflict with many of His other qualities—such as His grace and long-suffering patience—we find ourselves becoming extremely frustrated by these qualities when we’re going through wrath training. Remember the purpose of this training is to build core identity in you about God’s wrath specifically—not to introduce you to some happy balance of traits. The balance comes later on. The first stage is all about understanding His wrath as an isolated trait, and that will drive you into an intense dislike of every other quality God has which tempers His wrath. By itself, God’s wrath does not want to be tempered. It wants to dominate the scene and stomp out everything that dares to come against God. When you sincerely care about pleasing God and you find yourself suddenly having a major problem with His mercy, love, and compassion, it’s easy to start panicking that you’re somehow going astray. This is when you need to focus on trusting your Trainer: the magnificent Holy Spirit. He is the One who is going to keep you in alignment with God, and He is quite capable of walking you through this entire process without losing you.