Curb Your Anger — Morning Devotions

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Transcript

I’m quite sure you know what anger is, we’ve all felt it, whether you see it as a fleeting annoyance or some full-fledged rage. Anger is completely normal, it’s hopefully healthy, a human emotion, but when it gets out of control, turns destructive, it can lead to all sorts of problems.

Problems at your work and your personal relationship and the overall quality of your life, and it can make you feel as though you’re at the mercy of unpredictable emotion, and a powerful emotion like anger can get you into a lot of trouble.

Have you noticed some people really are more hot-headed than others, they get angry more easily than the average person does. Then there are those who don’t show their anger in loud ways, but are chronically irritable and grumpy. Easily angered people don’t always curse and throw things, sometimes they withdraw or sulk or get ill. So it all depends on the individual. We’re all different. Often when we picture a person with an anger issue, we imagine someone screaming and yelling. But there’s more to this than just a shouting match at home between a husband and wife.

Most people, I think, try their best to avoid getting angry, but it can get away like a volcano, an eruption, or it can remain bottled up inside. Just out of sight, just below the surface, and it can manifest itself in more subtle and dangerous ways…

It was the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle who explained it very well, I think. He said, Anybody can become angry. That’s easy. But to be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way, that is not, he said, within everybody’s power. It’s not easy. He was correct in saying it’s not easy to express your anger at the appropriate time, but he left God out of the equation.

Can a loving Father God help us deal with this problem? Yes, I think he can, and he does this through the Holy Spirit. Married couples experience conflict at times, as Doctor James Dobson said in one of his books. Successful marriages are not those marriages where anger or conflict does not exist, but rather successful marriages where they have learned to manage their anger. When anger is managed, it produces great marriages. That’s what he says. And I think the key phrase there is when anger is managed.

We need to resolve and manage this troublesome emotion. God has given you your biological makeup and that capacity to get angry. I’m saying that anger is not always bad or sinful. God got angry, Jesus got angry, Jesus handled it correctly, never got out of control.

And for you and I, we’ve got more control than we realise. We can say, I can control my anger with God’s help. Faced with a potentially explosive situation, we’ve got to stop and realise there’s always a price tag. Proverbs 29:22 says, a hot-tempered man gets into all kinds of trouble. Hot tempers cause arguments and people with hot tempers do foolish things.

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The word danger has one letter before the word anger. Thomas Jefferson said, When you get angry, count to 10. When you really get angry, count to 100. Give yourself some time to stop, reflect, think it through. Take a step back and ask a few minutes for God’s advice, and ask for His view on the situation you’re facing. So the big question, I think, to ask is, why am I angry?

Anger is never really the root problem in our lives. It’s usually a symptom or a warning light. Telling you that something’s wrong, and there is in all likelihood, frustration, fear, or hurt bubbling along in the background.

A helpful verse from the Bible is Ephesians 4:26. When you are angry, it says, don’t let it carry you into sin. Don’t let the sun set with anger in your heart. But there are ways for anger to be appropriate and not to be harmful and spiteful. Nothing can ruin a relationship faster than out of control anger. Aggression produces more aggression. Angry outbursts lead to angry outbursts. You reap what you sow.

The best way is to let God renew your mind, because the Bible again says in Romans 12, you will be able to discern what God wants, what is good, pleasing, and complete. How does Jesus help us to overcome our anger? By attacking the problem. He talks about your hurt, frustration, and your fears. He wants to replace that hurt with his healing love.

You may have been hurt in the past. You might have been abused or rejected and unwanted. Maybe you never got the approval of somebody who was important to you, and so your pain matters to God. He wants to replace the pain and anger with His love.

Let’s Pray

Heavenly Father, we do need to curb our anger, but Lord, left to our own devices, it can be very difficult. We need your supernatural divine power to live a balanced life, and I thank you for that in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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