God has entrusted us with the gift of life yet anger can make us unable to do the best with our gift. God gave us this emotion and we need to learn how to manage it. It’s neither good nor bad in itself but what it can do to the human spirit can have great effect. Anger is like fire – it can warm us, keep us safe and give us light but it can also kill us. Anger is ‘burning within you’ according to the Bible. There are a lot of things in the world to get angry about. Small things can cause us anger like traffic jams, someone putting the toilet paper on the roll the wrong way or squeezing the toothpaste wrong but there are also big things like child abuse, poverty, genocide and divorce which can lead to anger. What is this emotion, what are the typical ways we respond to it and what are some things that can help?
Anger comes from not getting what we think we deserve. We become frustrated because we feel we are entitled to something but haven’t received it. It causes us to burn with anger. Find an angry person and you will find a hurt person inside. Something was taken from them and they’ve become frustrated. The root of all anger is the idea of restitution – we feel we are ‘owed’. Sarcasm and manipulation are often how we demonstrate anger. Because we feel we’re ‘owed’, we also feel like we should get an apology. That’s where forgiveness comes in. Forgiveness is giving up the right to be angry. How can someone pay you back for a childhood taken from you or for the promotion you didn’t get? They can’t. But, if you don’t forgive, you will stay stuck in your anger and won’t be able to get past it. So how do we respond when confronted with the emotion of anger?
Some of us are spewers. Spewers speak before they think. They get angry and tell the person they’re angry at exactly what that person has done to wrong them and why. They say foolish, stupid things that they later regret. Collateral damage is what happens when a spewer explodes – people all around get cut open by the shrapnel of the spewer’s anger.
Stewers are harder to tell. They’re quiet on the outside but inside they keep a mental log book of every wrong anyone has ever done to them. The anger changes to hate inside. Once the stewer reaches the breaking point, the earth shakes when the eruption happens.
Here are three things that may to control the emotion of anger:
1. Look to God, not others for self-worth. At some level, we’re all people pleasers. With fragile egos, we often get angry easy due to what we feel are slights by others. If people don’t comment on our new hairstyle or new car, we get frustrated. God says our worth is to be found in him. We are masterpiece. We are God’s perfect.
2. Think before reacting. Be slow to get angry. Human anger doesn’t produce the righteousness that God requires. Our mouth works faster than our brain. A lot of anger management is really just mouth management. If you feel your temperature start to rise, set a timer and come back later. Count to ten. This is equally important for both spewers and stewers alike. Spewers need to count to ten and not speak but stewers need to count and then speak. We just need to be properly motivated to ‘stop and think’ about the consequences of our anger. Someone always pays for our anger – our children, our spouse, ourselves. There’s always a price because anger alienates people. Don use anger to motivate. It only works in the short term but eventually pushes people farther away.
3. Learn to be patient. We have to learn how to do this and once we learn it, we have to teach it to our children because they learn by example. Self control and patience is better than being powerful. We live life at the edge of insanity – too much happening and not enough time makes us blow a gasket if a hiccup in our schedule occurs. Deadlines bring out the worst in us.
To try to relax more, take the day off to get caught up at home. Be aware of our situation to relieve some stress. Use lots of grace and lots of space with people who are dear to you. Your story explains your behavior but it doesn’t excuse it. You don’t need to let it keep happening. Let it instead be an example of how God can change you. You can learn to respond in a different way. When you become a Christian, it doesn’t change how you act automatically. God gives you free choice always. The difference is when you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit lives within you and gives you the power to choose to act differently. You can choose to live in your flesh and blood body and let your anger get the best of you or you can choose to live with Jesus’s perspective and learn to control it.
Commit your live to Jesus Christ and become a Christ-follower today. Memorize Ephesians 2:10. Ask a loved one if you’re a stewer or a spewer. Determine when you get most easily angered to take control over it. Build relaxation into your life.
