Explosion

Proverbs 14:16-17

Getting a handle on our anger can be difficult process. I do know one thing, letting our anger control our behavior can be very detrimental to our relationships and reputation as a Jesus-follower. Anger can even destroy us.

There is a role for anger in our lives. Anger is, after all, a God-given emotion. So many of us don’t know what place anger should have in our lives because we have not seen it modeled for us by those around us in a healthy manner. Anger seems to become a tornado, ripping through our emotional neighborhoods.

In order to get control over our anger, we need to discover its source. If there are certain things that bring on a sudden feeling of anger and the anger is out of proportion to the situation, the anger probably doesn’t come from the current situation, but from an unresolved past event. Spend a little time figuring out what that event was and then allow yourself to feel what you would say if you were back there in that past event. So often we were not able to say what needed to be said and anger is one of the results.

Anger can be a protecting force, keeping danger at an arm’s length. That is why anger can make us feel secure. We might not be secure, but we can get the feeling of secure. It can make us feel like we have a degree of control. And yet, this type of anger can also make us feel out of control. We feel more control with our external world, but less control of our inner world. We hate it when the anger takes over, but we feel it is impossible to stop it.

This kind of anger often takes control. We end up doing things that we later regret. People get divorced over this kind of anger. Things get said and done in this kind of anger that create injuries that can take a lifetime to heal. Because our reactions are so rapid, stemming from our survival reactions, that we have packed a suitcase, moved out, and moved on, before we ever have a chance to think about our decisions with a reflective, calm mind. We have the feeling of control, but everything is out of our control.

Faith is out the window. Hope evaporates. We are on our own. Anger takes us to some very difficult places.

Tall Tale

Proverbs 14:3

Sometimes we say too much. This is especially true when we are bragging about something we have done. The human tendency is to embellish the story with each telling. We don’t mean to change it, or purposefully make the story better, but we add little details to paint ourselves in a better light.

This seems especially true for those people who have a personal story that matches every situation. They are in a conversation with a group of people and every story that is told by someone else gets matched with a story from them. And of course their story is funnier, or more tragic than the story told by the other person. They always win the one-ups-manship battle.

Now maybe their life is the most interesting on the planet. Maybe they do have experiences that match with everyone in their world. But when people express their pride in this way, it gets tiresome. They seem to dominate the conversation and turn it toward them.

I think Mark Twain might have had this verse in mind when he famously said “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” When we say too much, we often say too much.

We need to learn to curb our responses. This is especially true for those who have a camera pointed at them. Now a word spoken years ago can be brought up again to hurt. Even in a marriage, words spoken in the heat of a moment, can be brought up again and again because of the pain they caused.

I find that if we can remain silent when attacked, not responding with the immediate answer that puts our attacker in their place, then our answers will be more appropriate. But if we lash out in that moment, we will regret what we say. Our pride will take hold and set the timer on our destruction.

We can become a shock absorber, letting things said lose their potency with our lack of response. When we don’t react in kind, the other person really doesn’t know how to react. They were expecting their emotion to be mirrored by you. They expect an anger response from their angry outburst. They expect sarcasm when they have been sarcastic. So when you give them a response without the poison, they lose their bearings. They don’t know what their next move will be. You have changed the rules of the conversation.

I want to encourage you to say less in response today, to measure your words, saying only what is absolutely true.