Anger

Have you imagined the way you look when you are very angry? How would your loved ones respond when you are angry? Does an angry person pleasant to be with?

Anger affects our total well-being, decision, and our relationships. Anger destroys our peace of mind. Anger causes sleepless nights. An angry person is not happy with his life. He does not enjoy himself. Everything in life is unpleasant for an angry person – food, relationships, job, etc. Anger makes a person’s life more miserable. Anger blocks our progress and prevents us from accomplishing our tasks. Anger wants to destroy. An angry person no matter how attractive he is appears as a monster to the people surrounding him. Anger robs a person to think rationally. An angry person wants to retaliate against those whom he thinks have harmed him.

Anger causes a person to commit wrong decisions that would lead to further sufferings. An angry person is prepared to jeopardize his job, his relationships, and even the well-being of his family and children. An angry person looses his freedom of choice. He is driven here and there by uncontrollable rage.

Anger ruins relationships. There are times that anger is even directed at our loved ones and even kill the ones we hold most dear. An angry person is soon avoided by all who know him. A hot tempered man will eventually find himself abandoned by everyone. Even people close to an angry man will also avoid him. A couple may genuinely love one another, but if they frequently get angry with each other, the times when they are happy together will become fewer and drawn further from each other. Like a flower choked by weeds, relationship finds it hard to survive in such circumstances.

Anger creates enemies. It is through our anger and hatred that we transform people into enemies. Someone controlled by anger lives within a paranoid view of the world, surrounded by enemies of his or her own creation. The false belief that everyone hates him can become so overwhelming that he might even go insane, the victim of his own delusion.

What to do when you are angry?

1. Identify the cause of your anger.

What is the usual cause of anger? The usual cause of anger is a situation we do not like. Anger is the emotional response to an unpleasant situation. Whenever we are prevented from fulfilling our wishes or forced into a situation we dislike, we got angry. Whenever we have to put up with something we would rather avoid, our uncontrolled mind reacts by immediately feeling unhappy and angry.

Every day we encounter situations we do not like. Disagreeing with our business or life partner, discovering that we have cancer, hearing that we have been criticized unfairly are few examples of situations we do not like. Our normal reaction to all of these situations is to become unhappy and angry. However, try as we might, we cannot prevent unpleasant things happening to us. We cannot promise that for the rest of the day nothing bad will happen to us. We cannot even promise that we shall be alive to see the end of the day.

2. Learn what the Bible says about anger.

The Bible provides the model in dealing with anger. The Ultimate Model is God Himself. “God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day (Psalm 7:11) but He does not pour out the full extent of His anger or else we will all die because of rebellion against Him.

Paul gave the following admonition to believers about anger:

“In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” (Ephesians 4:26).

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (Ephesians 4:31).

“Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them” (Colossians 3:19).

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:17-21).

3. Do not repress your anger.

What is repression? There are other terms for repression. “Licking your own wound,” internalization, subjugation, and suppression are other terms for repression. It is a released of destructive energy toward self. One counselor said that such response to anger is the cause of tension, colitis, ulcer, or other such miseries.

If a person represses his anger, in the process of time, it will develop into a full blown anger and becomes so hard to control. This happens when we pretend that we are not angry while in fact we are really angry. Somehow, by doing this, we manage to control the outward expression of anger but not anger itself. This is very dangerous because anger continues to penetrate within us unnoticed, gathering in strength until one day it inevitably explodes.

4. Do not wait your anger to blow up.

It is the “volcanic eruption” of anger. It is a release of destructive energy to hurt others. Words pour out like lava. Debris is everywhere. Children hide under the bed.

5. Release your anger when you are in control of yourself and direct its energy not in destroying yourself nor other people but in addressing the problem.

The Bible prohibits sinful expression of anger. It also tells us the proper place of anger. A wise person is known by the manner he controls his anger. “A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control” (Proverbs 29:11).

Actually, a person who controls himself can turn the destructive force of anger into a constructive one. Instead of destroying yourself and people around you, if you can control yourself, you can direct your energy to address the problem. Instead of being carried without thinking by the force of emotion, a person who controls himself is thinking while expressing his anger. This is exactly the problem with angry people. They no longer think. As far as themselves is concerned, it is as if, it is already the end of the world!

When we control ourselves, we see exactly what is going on in our mind. We acknowledge honestly the angry stirrings in our mind for what they are, realize that allowing them to grow will only result in suffering, and then make a free and conscious decision to respond more constructively. If we do this skilfully, anger does not get a chance to develop properly, and so there is nothing to repress. Odysseus once said,

“It is easy to get angry but difficult to get angry at the proper person at the proper reason and at the proper time.”

6. Be patient.

Since it is impossible to fulfill all our desires or to stop unwanted things happening to us, we need to find a different way of relating to frustrated desires and unwanted occurrences. We need to learn patient acceptance.

Patience is a mind that is able to accept, fully and happily, whatever occurs. Being patient means to welcome wholeheartedly whatever arises, having given up the idea that things should be other than what they are. It is always possible to be patient. There is no situation so bad that cannot be accepted patiently, with an open, accommodating, and peaceful heart.

Patient acceptance does not necessarily mean that we do not take practical steps to improve our situation. If it is possible to remedy the situation, then of course we should. But to do this, we do not need to become unhappy and impatient. For example, when we have a headache there is no contradiction between practicing patience and taking a tablet, but until the tablet takes effect we need to accept whatever discomfort we feel with a calm and patient mind. If instead of accepting our present pain we become unhappy and fight against it, we shall just become tense, and as a result it will take longer to get rid of our headache. Patience and working actively for change are not contradictory. They go together.

Patience brings relational benefits. We learn to accept people as they are. Many of our relationship problems arise because we do not accept our partner as he or she is. In these cases the solution is not to change our partner into what we would like him to be, but to accept him fully as he is.

Patience does not only help us. It also helps those whom we are patient with. Being accepted feels very different to being judged. When someone feels judged they automatically become tight and defensive, but when they feel accepted they can relax, and this allows their good qualities to come to the surface. Patience always solves our inner problems, but often it solves problems between people as well.

To turn the destructive energy of anger into a constructive one is a difficult task. Man can do this on his own by virtue of education, family upbringing, and personal temperament. But the expectation of God from His people requires more than external control of anger. He requires the transformation of our innermost being by the Gospel and thereby to live a life bearing the fruit of the Spirit.

Note: The original idea of this post is taken from the book of Jay E. Adams, “God Has the Answer To Your Problems.”