Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Anger”
Our Bible verse for today: “Patience is better than power, and controlling one’s temper, than capturing a city.” Proverbs 16:32 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “Learning to control your anger is an important life skill.”
So, are you still mad at me? Yesterday I accused you of having an anger management problem and I told you that it’s true even if you don’t think it is. Today I’m going to prove it to you but before I do, I want to make amends for yesterday. I didn’t mean to make you mad I just wanted to get your attention. Sorry.
In their excellent book, “The Anger Management Workbook”, Doctors Les Carter and Frank Minirth explain that anger is an emotion that’s common to every person and it’s an emotion that we all struggle to control. The problem is that we often misidentify anger. We picture a person in a rage, slamming doors, shouting, and using extreme language. While that is one form of anger, and it describes the most common understanding of anger, the fact is that anger is much more complex than that.
For many people, rather than flying into a rage their anger is much more subdued and controlled, but it is anger none-the-less and it is being expressed just the same. Some people simply withdraw and remain silent when they’re angry. Some people smile and pretend nothing is wrong, while secretly nursing a deep sense of resentment and bitterness. Some people are prone to wallow in self-pity, believing they have been unfairly wronged, and allowing those thoughts to dominate their thinking. Others get irritable and impatient as their growing sense of anger simmers and percolates just below the surface.
Those are all expressions of anger that are unhealthy and not under proper control, and yet they do not fit the most common stereotype that usually comes to our minds when we think of uncontrolled anger. Do any of those describe you? I’ll bet they do. If not, just sit tight, there’s more. We’ll get to your preferred expression of anger in the days to come.
I want to end this morning by sharing an observation with you from Doctors Carter and Minirth about anger: “Anger is an emotion that is common to every person. Because we are imperfect people in an imperfect world, we are guaranteed to regularly encounter this emotion … The first step toward recovering from anger-related problems is identifying its various manifestations – recognizing it’s many faces.”
We will do that in the days to come.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 