I live in suburban America, in your typical cookie-cutter neighborhood of 200ish homes, a tree-lined entrance, complete with landscape lighting that usually works.
It’s a nice community. The kind where if you need an egg for brownies, your neighbor gives you one, and you return the favor with a warm middle square of the finished batch.
As you enter the neighborhood, you're greeted by a lake, okay, a retention pond, with a temperamental fountain, a tennis court, a pool, and a grand American flag that always seems to catch the breeze just right.
But for a while, that flag wasn’t there. After a thunderstorm took it down, the pole laid on the ground by the pool for months. It became background noise, a reminder of something lost, something we were all too busy to fix.
Every time I drove past the empty space, it made me sad… and eventually, angry.
I did what any good wife and dues paying HOA resident would do: I complained to my husband. Lucky for me, he’s also the HOA President.
After plenty of “friendly reminders,” I found out a new flagpole had been ordered. But “ordered” didn’t mean “installed.” It sat in a box by a front door for more months, missing Memorial Day and Independence Day.
Knowing it was right there, just waiting, stirred in me.
My sadness turned to nagging, then to frustration. “How hard can it be to put up a flagpole?” I’d ask. “It’s not yours to do,” my husband would respond. Translation: stay in your lane. It’s someone else’s responsibility.
But that flag, sitting in a box, being looked over, became symbolic.
Someone had the tools, the skills, the gifts—and yet chose not to act. I couldn’t unsee it.
Then, on October 20, 2024, everything changed.
We were prepping for an Apostle 'Que event when my T9 (my back) demanded I rest. Lying on the floor, feet propped in a chair, my frustration with the forgotten flagpole heated up again.
“Is that pole still at your brother’s house?” I asked my cliff buddy Jeff, who also works AQ with us.
“Yes, sitting by the front door.” Jeff said.
Josh, my HOA president husband who was hustling AQ past us, overheard my question and sensing where this was going. In Josh’s best redirection efforts, he chimed in, “But it’s not yours to do. Someone else is handling it.”
My husband’s dismissal brought my curiosity to a simmer, “I wonder, how long does it take to put up a flag pole” I asked.
Then my husband matches my unwittingly question by saying “what do you know about putting up a flag pole? You don’t know anything about digging a whole, setting concrete…”
I boiled over.
Like watching macaroni and cheese boiling and the noodle foam rises to the top, that instant panic of throwing an ice cube in it to lower the noodle foam but it’s too late, the noodle foam is over the pot, running down the sides and you here the sizzle as the noodle foam touches the burners.
We all heard the sizzle.
“What the f*ck did you just say to me?” Came steaming out of me with a solid whip lash as I quickly forgot about my back pain and made eye contact with my husband who just threw down a flagpole challenge.
Challenge accepted!
I grabbed my keys, my wallet, and my cliff buddy, Jeff. We headed to Lowe’s with the mantra “I’ll show you what I know about putting up a flagpole!”
One dusty flagpole box, three how-to TikToks, and twenty minutes later, the flag was flying again—bold, bright, and free. She was no longer forgotten, no longer lost, and recognized.
As I walked home, I felt triumphant. Not because Jeff and I installed a flagpole. But because I refused to let inaction, doubt, distractions, and “not my job” win.
At first, putting up that flag felt like a victory born from frustration, a middle finger to every excuse, delay, and doubt, and to the people who had the resources, skill, and talent; yet still did nothing.
That kind of selfish anger, the kind that drives us to prove others wrong, and to reclaim power. The kind of anger gassed by today’s motivational power mantras like “anything you can do I can do it better”, “stick it to the man,” and “I’ll show you.”
To quantify my selfish anger, that moment was fueled by 75% angry on behalf of the community, 23% frustration by the inaction, and 2% “I’ll show you what I know about flagpoles.”
And yes, it felt like 100% success as there now waved a gloriously bold, bright and free flag that stood on the powers of “I’ll show you what I know about putting up a flagpole.”
Challenge Successful!
That is, until I learned my selfish anger served no one but me. My quantified selfish anger did not leave room for God. I did not boil over with noodle foam because I was concerned for the communities reminder of Pledging “one nation under God,” nor did I simmer on the thought that my selfish anger, in and of itself, was separating me from God.
Author Robert D. Jones would be disappointed to know I did not put that flag up out of righteous anger.
In Robert D. Jones book, Uprooting Anger, he defines righteous anger as reacting against actual sin (anything that separates you from God), focusing on God and His kingdom, and accompanied by other godly qualities and expresses itself in godly ways.
You know the kind of righteous anger, where Jesus overturned the tables at the temple. (Matthew 21)
Let’s get real, there were no godly qualities nor godly ways in my flagpole construction.
With this knowledge, my heart sank and my “I’ll show you…” victory of a flagpole standing strong, waving boldly and free turned to a sobering reminder of,
if you’re going to put up flagpoles with anger, be righteously angry,
be angry against actual sin,
fighting against the forces that entice separation from God,
Fight against the glanced over dusty flag-pole box sitting by the front door
focus on God and His kingdom and rage against all the lies that create confusion and doubt about Gods love for people,
Rage against the empty space of a missing flagpole that stirs in your heart as something lost.
And be sure your anger is joined with godly qualities and chooses to express itself in godly ways,
battle the distractions that keep people from their God given gifts and talents,
Battle the excuses and busyness of inaction.
Over a year later, the flag still flies. We still pause to say the Pledge. And I’ve come to see that flag pole moment as my lesson in righteous anger.
I live in a world filled with people walking past their front door flag pole boxes, searching for something lost, and being busy. Distracted. Discouraged. Convinced.
And, I’m righteously angry.
Righteously angry at the force that distracts, discourages, and convinces people God doesn’t love them.
As if, I heard the enemy say “what do you know about Gods love?”
To which I boldly, brightly and freely reply, “what the f*ck did you just say to me?”
So I’m putting up my biggest flagpole yet, a giant middle finger to the enemy, with a pledge that we will Give thanks to the Lord. His faithful love endures forever. (1 Chronicles 16)
