Hope for the Difficult Emotion — Changing sinful patterns happens in community
Last issue’s devotional on the subject of anger uncorked a geyser of responses. Here are only a few:
•”Last week I lost my temper with another member of my congregation, and God dealt with me firmly for it. I regretted the words as they were coming out of my mouth. I come from a rough background, and my anger has been an ongoing battle ever since I got saved. I had to go back to that person and apologize for my performance and ask for forgiveness. I was forgiven, but I still beat myself up for it.”
• “Did Jesus sin when he, in anger, picked up a whip to drive the money changers out of the temple? Do you think he struck any of the money changers when he was driving them out?”
• “Anger, righteously, rather than selfishly motivated, is God’s intuitive gift. If it is of the Spirit rather than of the flesh (or of human nature as the GNB puts it), it can alert us to danger: physical, emotional or moral. But then we have to resist the temptation of over-balancing into destructive self-righteousness.”
• “Good devotional, but would have been better if you included some information or resource on HOW TO UNLEARN anger on a biblical basis.”
Guilty as charged. How does one unlearn angry responses?
Change in behavior, slathered with prayer, most often happens in community — with a spouse who speaks the truth in love, with a therapist who opens our eyes to our destructive patterns and the reasons behind them, with a friend who loves us in spite of ourselves, with a child who mirrors back to us our unhealthy patterns, with a small group that dares to love us unconditionally.
There seems to be both an internal and external component to change: the insight that sheds light on the reason we’re angry (internal) and the intervention (external) that aids us in getting us over the hump of change.
Where is God in all this? He makes change possible, working through those around us to say to us what needs to be said and strengthening our will to overcome the impossible. May this Christmas season Christ’s love overcome all your anger.