Psalm 4:4
Be angry and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.

“I’m sorry, what was that you said Lord? Zip it? Be quiet, don’t say another word?”

Uhmmmmm, Yup! I believe He is kindly saying, “Close your mouth!” It is okay to get angry, but don’t sin in your anger by allowing things to come out of your mouth that shouldn’t! You can’t take what you say back, so guard your mouth, put your hand over it if you must, but don’t say another word while you are still angry! Go find a place to get yourself under control!

So often the first response when we get angry is to lash out, after all we are hurt and what the other person did was hurtful and wrong! That doesn’t make it right! One hurtful thing added on top of another will not make things right! If you thought you had work to do in that relationship before, just start speaking your mind and see how long it takes to work through it!

When you are angry your first course of action needs to be to stop, don’t say anything hateful and find a place to cool down and think things through and pray! Bill and I had a very heated argument a while back and it took me days to get over it! The thing I struggled with the most was that we could allow something stupid (who knows what it was because I don’t remember ~ couldn’t have been that important!) to say things to each other that were hurtful and wrong! How stupid! I had a more difficult time forgiving myself for allowing my anger to get the best of me than I did forgiving him. We solved nothing by arguing other than we both agreed we will not allow that to happen again! We could always blame it on the fact that he is Italian and I have Irish, German and well Indian, even though Indians aren’t known for their temper the thought of scalping him may have crossed my mind a few times during that tiff! But here’s the deal: I don’t care what your heritage is, you have a choice in how you react to things! We are called on to be godly and self controlled; Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” Yeeaaaah, I don’t remember anything in that argument containing any of the above!

When you react in anger you are basically asking God to stay out of it! “Here, sit over here a minute Lord and watch us act like total fools.” I don’t think He appreciates that much!

We have a choice! There is a choice you make every time you react! You can either be filled with your anger and lash out or you can be filled with the Holy Spirit and take some time to cool down and behave like the godly adult you were called to be! Your attitude is your choice, no one can take yours and no one can give you theirs ~ it is your choice how you will behave! You can’t blame your reaction on “well, he/she did or said…….”, they may have and they were probably wrong, but you still need to be self-controlled enough to allow the Holy Spirit take control of you and your response!

If you are struggling with anger, I would encourage you to get to the root of it! Anger doesn’t just wander into your life, there is a root cause for that anger. Anger usually stems from something that hurt you that you never dealt with and over time has turned into one big, overflowing, boiling pot of anger! Don’t think you can just stuff those hurts and they will stay there or go away on their own, you have to talk through them! If your friend, boss, spouse or child relationship means anything to you then you need to talk through those hurts and frustrations, it is vital to your relationship! Don’t allow every little thing become some deep hurt either. It is easy to allow a big hurt to snowball by picking up every little hurt along the way until it is just one humongous ball of hurt just waiting to run the next person over that says or does something wrong! Stop, deal with it and give your hurts and anger to God! Choose to forgive and allow that feeling of freedom from that thing wash over you like a gentle rain on a hot day.

The bottom line is this; your anger, if not controlled will hurt more than it could ever help in any situation. Someone else may deserve your anger, but if you allow your anger to control you then you are the one who pays the biggest price in the end. Satan would like to destroy all of us with uncontrolled anger, take a look at the world around us and see what anger is doing to people when it is allowed to just rage. Don’t allow Satan to get the best of you because of hurt that hasn’t been dealt with in the past! If you are really struggling in this area, talk to someone, find a counselor or pastor that can help you work through it. Don’t ignore the problem, it will not leave on it’s own!

You can have victory over all of this by giving it to God, one hurt and frustration at a time. Find a great life coach to walk you through it all and ask God to fill you with all of the fruit of the Spirit, don’t hold anything back! The best is yet to come!

Quote:
“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.” Marcus Aurelius

“If a person doesn’t govern his temper, his temper will govern him.” John Maxwell