Becoming The Hulk: How To Avoid The Monster

Becoming the Hulk

How to Avoid the Monster

JAM. gregg barbour. 7.27.03.

Robert Bruce Banner was born in Dayton, Ohio to Dr. Brian and Rebecca Banner. Bruce was loved by his mother, but hated by his alcoholic father. Dr. Brian Banner had been exposed to radiation and would do certain experiments on himself. He determined that his son’s intelligence was a mutation derived from that exposure. Bruce was raised by his aunt after his father murdered his mother, and went on to attend Desert State University, and then the California Institute of Technology. He went on to work at a nuclear research facility in Desert Base, New Mexico, where a horrible Gamma Bomb accident created an alter ego within him called the Hulk. The Hulk was 7 feet, 1000 pounds of relentless fury. His strength was Incredible, but he had no control over his actions. According to the Comics: in the beginning days, Bruce would transform into the Hulk at sunset, and then under periods of stress and anger. Now, if you’ve seen the movie…the madder that the Hulk got, the bigger he became, and with that fury came more uncontrollable rage. The Hulk is one bad creature, able to pound people into next week with a single thump. He’s strong and powerful, and can teach us an important lesson. We’ve got to handle our anger positively. It’s easy for people to fly off the handle, especially if they’ve bottled up emotions over time. They can pop their top and unleash some serious anger on others. We’ve got to learn how to avoid the monster if we want to have character that represents God. This is a list of the top ten things that we thought would make you turn into the Hulk:

10. Getting your books dumped in the hallway.

9. Being told that you’re too young to date.

8. Too little money; too much homework.

7. Having to baby-sit your younger siblings.

6. Waking up Monday morning with a huge zit.

5. Being told you must dress up for church.

4. Three words: “Chores, Chores, Chores.”

3. Being grounded for something you didn’t do.

2. Getting picked on by high schoolers.

1. Being told you’re acting like a baby when you lose your cool.

These things may make you begin the transformation process from who you are to the Hulk, but I want to help you be able to deal with hot feelings in a cool way. We’re going to learn today that God wants us to handle our anger positively.

The truth is that everyone gets angry. Everyone struggles with it and it’s simply part of being human, but we don’t have to be controlled by it. Dr. Buddy Rydell from Anger Management says there are 2 kinds of angry people: Explosive and Implosive. Explosive are the kind of people that yell at the cashier when they won’t accept their coupons. Implosive are the kind of people that keep their anger bottled in and then express their anger in a huge way. An implosive person would be the cashier that accepts the rude comments day after day and then one day pops, and shoots everyone in the place. We can control our anger. What are some things that make you angry? (allow responses) (Joe Somebody clip) It’s ok to be angry, what might not be ok is how we handle it.

I’m gonna let you play detective for just a few minutes. I’m going to give you three clues, and you can ask only 10 questions to help you figure out what happened. I can’t give you any names, but I’ll do my best to answer your questions. Here are the clues: A rich man who owned a great deal of livestock lies dead in his house. A leader of a band of mercenary soldiers had just been insulted by the dead man. The dead man’s widow is soon to be married to the leader of the soldiers. (Allow questions, and give answers) So, what happened? Did this man turn into the hulk and kill the rich man who called him a weenie and take his woman? Nope. There was a man named Nabal, who had 1000 goats and 3000 sheep. While this guys servants were looking after the sheep, David and all his man made a wall around them to protect them from harm, because they knew it was time to shear the sheep so this man could make money from the wool. So David sent some men to this man Nabal to let him know what they’d done so he could bless them with some food or anything they could find. In Ancient times, a person’s name was believed to reflect his nature and character. In Hebrew, the name Nabal means “fool,” and this is exactly what he was. He paid no attention to what David did for him, and gave them nothing. David was furious with this man’s reply so he ordered his men to grab their swords so he could go and kill this man. While they were devising a plan, Abigail, Nabal’s intelligent and beautiful wife shows up with tons of gifts and food. She pleads for the lives of the men in her village, and consults David that the Lord will take care of him and bring him success. She keeps him from doing something hostile with her intervention and David grants her request to spare the lives of her people. When Abigail told Nabal what happened the scripture says he became like a stone…which possibly means he had a stroke, and 10 days later he was dead, and David proposed to Abigail. David was able to handle his anger well.