How do you deal with anger?
The way we react to the obstruction of our will often determines our quality of life and ability to love in relationships. So here are some of the options:
- Explosive temper: This is probably the most obvious form of anger. You raise your voice or verbally assault another person. You may even try to harm a person or other objects.
- Stuffing. With a stuffer, the storm of anger has moved internally. The anger will manifest itself in many forms, but the primary outcome of anger being stuffed is depression. Depression, fueled by anger, slowly begins to dominate someone’s spirit until their heart is wrecked.
- Cynicism, Judgment, and Gossip. These three manifestations of anger could be put in separate categories, but I will put them in one because they are all interconnected. Cynicism is an expression of anger by finding fault and living with distrust of others. Judgment is evaluating others on WHY they do the things they do and then SEEING them on the basis of your evaluation. Slander, of course, just shares this judgment with others.
But is there a way to deal with anger in a way that is emotionally healthy and not harmful to your friends and family? This doesn’t have an easy answer, but here are a few thoughts:
- Anger should be named for what it is. We need to say to ourselves (and, sometimes, others), “I am angry.” Just as any cure needs a proper diagnosis, we need to be able to recognize when we are angry.
- Take your anger to the Lord. Yell and scream before the Lord (even if it has to be in a pillow). Sit and write a letter to the Lord. He can deal with it — you will not write anything that hasn’t been said before in the Bible, particularly the Psalms. Be cognizant of what God brings to mind.
- Evaluate your anger. What part of your anger is legitimate? What do we want to be put right? What part is illegitimate? Who do I think owes me?
- Confess the sin in your anger, and also affirm what is right about your anger. Not always, but often, our anger is mixed. We can’t let anger make us self-righteous, but we can’t let it devastate us either. And for that repeat step 2.
One of the ways we remain blind to our own need of a Savior is our obsession with how other people should think and behave.
So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s (1 Corinthians 3:21-23).
What comes out of you is the product of who you are in on the inside.
When we get in close proximity with other people in their church soon find out that they bite. Not literally, but they use their mouths to wound. Many of us attribute this to sin, but that is really not specific enough. The problem is the law.
In C.S. Lewis’s “Horse and His Boy” two horses and their riders are racing back to Archenland to warn the king of their enemies, who are arriving unaware. Although they are going fast, the horses are not quite running as fast as they could. Suddenly a lion jumps out of the thicket and begins to pursue the horses, who find that they could run faster. Later we find that the lion was Aslan himself, scaring the horses to run at their true speed because they they needed to go faster because of the pursuing army.