Anger- The Emotion Incognito

A few weeks ago there was a terrible tragedy in the quaint suburban town I live in. A mother stabbed her own eight year old son one hundred times and then she stabbed the five year old girl she was babysitting. She murdered both of them.

In her statement to the authorities she confessed that she had been in a fight with her husband earlier that evening, and that she was angry with him.

Because of her anger she lost all logical thinking and killed her own flesh and blood, the child she gave birth to.

Anger is extremely deceptive and powerful and it is usually a cover up for deeper un-expressed emotions.

When your emotions are left unprocessed you can become irrational and then behave in ways you wouldn’t normally.

Bitterness, resentment, and jealousy usually tag along with feelings of anger.

Often times disappointments can trigger us to feel angry as well.

Another reason feelings of rage can flare up is because one feels they have no control over a person(s) and/or a situation.

It’s human nature to want to be in control.

There are some people that literally lose their minds when they cannot be in charge. These are the people like the woman from my town that murdered the two children. There is news daily of murders of passion (anger).

There is, however, a “righteous” anger. This is an anger that is acceptable because it is anger expressed with self-control.

Jesus displayed this type of anger when He went to the Temple one day and saw merchants selling things and making money. He told the merchants, “Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” (John 2:13-16).

Jesus was angry.  It was a godly anger. This is anger which is aligned with the holy and righteous character of God.

For example, if  your child was bullied in school. As a parent you will feel a righteous anger that someone would mistreat your child. This is because it is wrong to bully and mistreat others and it is against God’s ways.

God has a lot to say about anger. He gives us warnings and guidelines over and over again in His Word against sinning when we are angry.

In Ephesians 4:26 He tells us “don’t sin by letting anger control you.”  How do we do this?  How can we control our anger?

I think we have to look at where the rage stems from.  As I have mentioned above, there is usually a deeper issue behind one’s fury.

 This is because anger is usually incognito for another emotion we are feeling.

It is more than likely that we are feeling either sad,  hurt, grief,  jealousy,  shame and/or guilt, but we are not aware of these feelings within us.

a) know what you are feeling

b) learn how to validate and process these emotions in a healthy way. This is why having accountable people in our lives is so important. We all need others that we can talk with and share our burdens with.

If you learn how to to do these two things, you ought to be able to better manage your anger.

Most of us have not been taught how to be in touch with our feelings.

I grew up not being aware of what I was feeling.  It was only when my marriage fell apart that my husband and I had to learn, through counseling and recovery programs, how to be connected to our inner feelings and how to express them.

Having self-control is critical to how we handle our anger. You must have self-control so that you don’t just react to situations and act impulsively.

It honors God when we have self-control.

It honors God when we can control our anger.

It honors God when we live in the ways He asks us to.

Leave me a comment below with your thoughts on anger. How do you manage your anger?

“Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.  Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.” ~James 1:19-20

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