Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Anger”
Our Bible verse for today: “A wise man is cautious and turns from evil, but a fool is easily angered and is careless. A quick-tempered man acts foolishly.” Proverbs 14:16-17
Our thought for today: “Be wise and make the right choice.”
As has already been noted, controlling your anger is a choice. It can be done. We know that to be true because in multiple places the Bible commands us to control our anger and the Bible never tells us to do something that cannot be done. Another thing we’ve already learned is that the first step to gaining control over anger is to learn more about what anger is; what causes it; and how it gets expressed.
In their excellent book, “The Anger Management Workbook”, Doctors Les Carter and Frank Minirth explain the five most common ways that people attempt to control their anger. Three of the ways are wrong and therefore ineffective; the other two are correct and are an effective and healthy way to deal with anger. Let me summarize all five of those ways for you:
- Suppressing anger. This is probably the most common way of trying to control anger. It’s simply a matter of holding it in and pretending it doesn’t exist. Obviously this isn’t really helpful because it doesn’t deal with the anger in any constructive way; the anger is still real and present it’s just being denied.
- Open aggression. This is the second most common way of dealing with anger; you’re mad and you just let it rip! There’s explosiveness, rage, intimidation, blame, harsh words, etc.
- Passive aggression. This is the middle ground between suppressing anger and open aggression. The person isn’t in a full-blown rage, but neither is the anger really controlled. It’s subdued and slightly veiled, but the person is giving you the “evil eye”, their jaw is clenched, they’re steaming inside, there’s a hard edge to their voice, and they’re probably getting a little mean too – but all the while struggling to contain it. There’s an element of passiveness, but there is also barely contained aggression.
- Assertive anger. “Assertive” anger sounds bad but isn’t. This is actually a healthy expression of anger. This is the Ephesians 4:26 way of expressing anger, “Be angry and do not sin.” Think of Jesus cleansing the temple. It’s a person responding to a situation that justifies anger, but doing it in a controlled and clear-minded manner that is not sinful in nature. This is speaking the truth in love, and then engaging in “tough love” until the situation is adequately dealt with.
- Dropping anger. This is not suppression. Instead, it’s water off a ducks back. It’s an acknowledgement that while there might be justification for you to be miffed by what was said or done, or you might disagree with the position the other person is taking, you decide that it really isn’t all that big a deal and it doesn’t matter to you enough to do or say anything about it. So without resentment or bitterness, you simply choose to shrug it off and you really do let it go.
We do have a choice about how we handle anger and we obviously need to
reject choices one through three above. Assertive anger or dropping the anger is the right way to handle it. Remember, you do have a choice and you can train yourself to make the right choice.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 