We all experience anger. There are multiple reasons and situations that trigger the emotion. I want to focus though on the anger that we feel at times toward our spouse. I think you all can agree that there are times your husband makes you “mad as fire.” I want us to explore that emotion, the root of it, and then what to do with it.
Now, this is a short blog so it will only scratch the surface on exploring anger. I would also recommend a great book written by Gary Chapman, “Anger: Handling a Powerful Emotion in a Healthy Way.” It has wonderful insights and guidance.
Many times, when we are working with a couple at the root of what drove them to reach out for some help (always the wise, best thing) is some anger over something in their relationship. Many times, they will not initially call it “anger”. They will use other words like “hurt”, disappointment, or frustration but many times at the root is anger.
The first place we need to start is to acknowledge that anger is an “emotion”, the emotion is not sin, it is just an emotion. What we do with the emotion is what determines how it plays out in our mind and hearts (if it becomes sin). So, we need to get rid of the idea that we, as believers, should never get angry, and that if we do it is always wrong. The truth is the emotion of anger, is what occurs when an injustice is done, when wrongs occur, when what should not happen, happens. It is part of being made in the image of God. He is justice and righteousness. We certainly do not image this perfectly, but when we experience the emotion of anger, it can be based on an injustice. When people are harmed, treated unjustly, denied access or opportunities, when evil appears to triumph. This should stir anger in us. We should feel outrage at some of the horrific things that happen in our world that are flat out wrong and evil.
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Learning to pause every time we get angry is a huge step in learning to handle it in the right way.
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Now that we have established that we need to be clear that not all of our anger is based on an actual moral wrongdoing, or an injustice, we must examine the situation every time we are angry. Many times, because we are sinful human beings, we find that our anger is really a result of how a certain action, word, deed, etc. affected us. How it impacted us. Many times, there is not an actual evil, moral wrongdoing that has occurred; but what happened may have hurt, disappointed, frustrated or inconvenienced us. Now, the emotion feels the same, but the reality is that there was not a true “wrong” committed. We feel like it is, but the reality is that it may not be.
This can be a hard pill to swallow because what I need to do is stop and examine what has made me angry, and really look at it to determine if this anger that I feel is based on an actual moral, or wrong-doing, or my perfection of a “wrongdoing” ? Many times, it is my perception.
Learning to pause every time we get angry is a huge step in learning to handle it in the right way. Next time we will talk about how we can start to do this.
~ Carla
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