Let’s be honest, we all experience anger.
It’s okay to admit it. Don’t Christianize it - we’re not just “frustrated,” but “angry” at times.
God gets angry. References to God’s anger show up roughly 375 times in the Old Testament alone.
Even Jesus was “zealous” for “His Father’s House” when he drove extortionists out of the temple.
As a Dad In The Trenches, that makes God feel way more relatable to me in some strange way.
But here’s the deal: God is holy. I am not.
His anger is a “righteous” anger and comes out of a response to sin in the world.
My anger is “distorted” and comes as a response to a host of situations (mostly that involve my pride).
Examples might be:
-feeling hurt
-feeling offended
-expectations not being met
-not feeling in “control”
-feeling threatened
-feeling fearful
-etc...
In these situations when I experience anger (probably 99.9% of the time) my anger is not justified as His is...but distorted. How about you?
As a Dad In The Trenches, you and I deal with people all day - and then, we go home and deal with little sinners (our children).
Frustrations of unmet expectations and feelings of a lack of control are bound to mount and culminate. It happens to us all.
There is a disturbing trend in society that encourages us, if we’re angry, to unleash it in a “controlled” environment. Take a bat to a pillow, for example. Or go punch a mattress.
Did you know there are even “rage rooms” where you can pay to go in and destroy stuff?
This is counterproductive; however, as it actually trains you to respond with unrestrained aggression.
Ephesians 4:26 says, “In your anger do not sin.”
So what do we do? #FatherhoodIsWar so we need some tactics here to help us out.
Here are a few great pointers from Gary Chapman’s book “Anger: handling a powerful emotion in a healthy way” (I’d highly recommend reading):
(1) Acknowledge you are angry - so you know what you’re dealing with.
(2) Restrain the immediate response of physical or verbal venting. Count to 10 (or 100). Train your response.
(3) Locate the focus of your anger (the “why I am angry?” aspect). This allows you to determine how severe the infraction is that’s causing you to respond the way you are.
(4) Analyze your options - do you confront the situation or let it go and overlook the offense?
(5) Take constructive action - gently confront the person that offended you or pray and release the anger and the person to God.
By taking these steps you “process” the anger objectively instead of “venting” the anger subjectively.
Furthermore, when you realize the "why am I angry?", it's a great time to take it to the Lord in prayer. Ask the Spirit to deal with that "why" and the root cause. Ask him to diffuse the anger and help you understand what to do next. He is faithful and will help!
How about you? Have you had to deal with anger issues? What's helped? Having a hard time? Drop me a note here.
In The Trenches with you,
~Aaron