anger

[Mrs. Enigma]

There is this really great article on anger http://www.nathhan.com/anger.htm
I have trouble in this area. I think a lot of people could really improve their lives by following this.
I am planning on trying to change my feelings and not allow myself to get angered as easily. I really hope that some of you will read this. I think it may really help me out. I tend to get stressed out when the kids are crying and demanding a lot. I want to always be a happy mom. I feel like I shouldn't lose my temper and bark or yell - ever. I just do not know of many, if any, moms who are always calm, but I want to conquer this area of my life. With God we can be way better than the norm.
I think this anger advice would apply to people suffering from some forms of depression, marriage problems, work relationships, etc. It looks like God has a pretty strong opinion on our anger. Let me know what you thought of the article....

 

[Rafael]

Wow! That's a great article. I lived in a household and was brought up with anger being threatened all the time. Even a light switch left on could turn into a hassle. I don't think parents know what living under the spirit of anger does to a family. We felt like we had to walk on egg shells for years, and the anger was transferred to all of us. It has influenced my life and been passed on to me, just as the scripture tells us that the sins of the father can be passed on to the second and third generation - being a long time for anger to exist. I fight anger and shrink from it in my own life, and can only hope to see it all gone and put away when the Lord comes back.

 

[Mr.Cheese]

Anger is a hand that will always hold you down.
There is a difference between getting stressed out and upset on the one hand and living with bitterness and anger in your heart.
I was angry at dad when he left. It took me several years to understand how it affected my attidude and how i lived life every day.
We all get angry at things from time to time, we should learn to not let those moments get the best of us. For me, that meant not punching doors and walls or whatever.

But the anger that lives in hearts will destroy every part of our lives. What made me begin to see things better was when I realized that my actions and their consequences are my responsibility.
The song by Johnny Paycheck, ironically, illustrates the effects of anger. It's the job's fault. It's the boss's fault. It's never me or my attitude.

Did that make any sense at all?

 

[Alternate Carpark]

Well, it's a very long article that's for sure. It's too bad the writer doesn't understand the concept of paragraphs.
I personally do not like the article at all. It is full of assumptions and emotional misleadings
that try to back up the writers claims as to the evilness of anger.
To me , it's way off track and only leads to add more of a burden to people's lives.

You don’t bring X rated movies into your house and watch them as a family.

You don’t bring an idol into your living room and bow down before it.
You don’t have a witch come into your house and hold a seance.
And you don’t get angry in your house.

If anger is the same as the others in the list, then I would hate to contemplate what our other emotions are. To state that anger is evil is just nonsense.
Anger is an emotion, a feeling. Nowhere in the word does it say "do not have feelings ", instead it says " control your feelings, do not let your feelings control you "

Paul got angry at the High Priest in Acts 23 and then humbly apologized. (When Jesus got angry, He didn’t need to apologize.)

This is very vague and doesn't even expound on why Paul apologised, and rightly so that the writer didn't because it doesn't back up the article at all.
As for Jesus never apologising for being angry, why should He.
Anger is an emotion, not an action. Anger is not the problem, but our ungodly actions are. This is why it says, "Be angry and sin not" Ephes. 4:26

John 2:13-17
When the Passover Feast, celebrated each spring by the Jews, was about to take place, Jesus traveled up to Jerusalem.
[14] He found the Temple teeming with people selling cattle and sheep and doves. The loan sharks were also there in full strength.
[15] Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle,
upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right.
[16] He told the dove merchants, "Get your things out of here! Stop turning my Father's house into a shopping mall!"
[17] That's when his disciples remembered the Scripture, "Zeal for your house consumes me."

It was zeal that empowered/motivated Jesus to chase them out.
What emotion do you think He used...anger...righteous anger.
Now I'm getting angry about the other errors in that article, I will stop now.
* stops and clears mind *

Mrs.Enigma, your anger is not the issue God wants to deal with, it's your inability to not stress about daily occurrences.
Anger is a by product of stress and lack of peace and contentment.
It is the end result of stress that is building up inside.
God designed us with feelings as signals and signs of what's happening inside.
We are not meant to remove our feelings, but we are meant to control our feelings so they don't dictate our actions.
There's nothing wrong with you becoming angry, but there is a problem when you bark and yell.

Anger is a feeling, yelling is an action. They are two separate things.
We are not meant to remove all the 'negative' feelings and just keep the 'positive' ones. They both have a role to play in our lives.

You could look at it like this, feelings are neither negative or positive, they are all just feelings that have important roles to play.
It is society that declares certain feelings as negative or not.
All feelings are there for a reason, they are as important as each other.

Take for example, sadness. What do we naturally do when we are sad.
We try to be happy. We instantly do not like the sad feeling, we would rather enjoy the happy feeling.
So we spend vasts amount of time and energy avoiding the sad feelings and try to find things that will make us happy.

This way of life will lead to an unbalanced perception of reality.
What we should do is explore the reason why we are sad.
That's what feelings are for, they are signals that are trying to tell us something or someone has done something to us that causes us to feel sad.

Instead of dealing with the cause, we try to subdue the symptom.
We spend a great deal of our lives trying to cover over the 'negative' feelings by obtaining 'positive' feelings
and thus miss out on a whole lot of life in the process.

 

[Rafael]

A. S. is right. Be angry but sin not. Anger focussed and controlled can be used as a motivational tool. Turned inward, it can become destructive if not tempered, again.
I don't think I read the whole thing, but did like a couple of points that rang true to me and reminded me of my position with anger

 

[stephenthecounsellor]

anger may be a sign of several things happening for you...
it may reflective of some guilt that is unresolved in your life...
it may also be masking a deeper sadness that ou are feeling that you are not expressing...anger is normally a sign when we feel our needs (legitimate or not) are not being met...
anger is ok...its when it becomes uncontrollable that its not...if it persists a good psychotherapist should be able to locate its origin
all the best
Stephen

 

[Mrs. Enigma]

I thought it was a good article. Oh, well.

I am trying to follow the guy's advice and not get angry. God is helping me and I am improving. That article reminded me of The Pineapple Story, which is a great children's book.

Sorry for not responding sooner.