“Making Life Work” – Pt. 9
Manage Anger
What is it that gets you mad? I’m sure that for each person here there is one thing that really pushes your buttons, really gets your goat and really makes you mad. I recently read the results of an Internet poll that asked people the question, “What gets you mad?” Listen to how some people around the country responded when they were asked this question. These answers come from a website that deals with the subject of anger.
I am angry because I can’t stand people that cut me off when there is not another car behind me!! That’s not all either, the bad part is!!! They turn DONT turn their blinker on and go off on the next exit right up the road. So why cant they just wait till I pass. Does this make sense?? I THINK NOT!!!!!
I am angry when parents don’t take time to teach kids to RESPECT other people NOT saying all kids are disrespectful, but a lot are and they don’t care as long as they can GET OVER on someone else.
RESPECT for: property,Rights,opinions,space.
All this should be taught at HOME. So if the kid is out of line 90% of this is because no one bothers at home
I hate the fact that I am dating a momma’s boy! He is almost 24 years old and can’t even go through one day without calling his mommy at home! On top of that, if he’s not calling his mother, he is calling his sister or his brother or his father. Just one day I would like to spend with him without having to worry about him calling home. It seems like every date we go on lately is interrupted by a phone call by one of his family members to pick something up on the way home, or his sister has a problem AGAIN or blah, blah, blah. Why can’t he be a little more independent? I can just picture when we get married, we will have to build an extension to the house so his family can move in with us. Woe is me!!!
There is a heightened awareness in our society today concerning anger that comes in the form of rage. The most noted of these is the infamous road-rage, which I am sure that no one in this room suffers from! There have been countless stories in the newspapers and on the news of people who, while behind the wheel seem to lash out on another driver because another’s driving is driving them crazy.
One driver either drives too slow or makes a wrong move and that is all it takes for the arms of another driver to go up, the words start spewing and the hand gestures begin to fly. In some cases road-rage has lead to side of the road fights that have resulted in some pretty serious injuries. In the worst-case scenarios, people have even died as a result of road-rage. We have heard of people being shot and killed or run off the road or had their pets killed because someone didn’t like the way they were driving. Seems kind of stupid to lose your life over the way that you drive. Somebody loses their cool and somebody loses their life.
Do you ever get that mad? Do you ever get so mad that you don’t care who is around or whom you are talking to, because you are really going to let someone have it? In some form or another we all have a temper, we all have ways of displaying our anger. For some it takes a great deal more to bring this about than others. Still for some, displays of anger come as easy as breathing.
What exactly is this thing we call anger? Even psychologists refer to it as our most baffling behavior. It’s a perplexing emotion. Why are some able to control it and others are controlled by it? We do know this from God’s Word: God created us in His image and designed us with the capacity for anger. We also know that experiencing anger isn’t always a bad or sinful thing - even God gets angry, according to the Scriptures. But how we manage our anger is vital. If we are committed to "Making Life Work," we need to fully understand what God says about this crucial area of our lives.
This week we are continuing in our study of the book of Proverbs, and I hope you have been reading some of the book everyday. We had a deal, remember? Don’t get me mad at you for not reading because I may not be able to control my anger! No, I am just kidding.
But, like the other areas of life we have addressed in Proverbs, the writer of the book talks about this area of anger and quite often especially when it comes to managing it. Through out the book of Proverbs there is an underlying notion that the writer is trying to get across concerning our anger and that is this:
Life works out a whole lot better when we are able to control our anger.
He says that when we are able to control our anger we become things like wise, and understanding, peaceful and levelheaded and able to have some sort of control over our lives. Listen to what the writer of Proverbs has to say.
Proverbs 14:29: “A patient man has great understanding, but a quick tempered man displays folly.”
The first thing that the writer of Proverbs says is that:
When we manage our anger and don’t lose our cool easily, we will have great understanding.
Earlier in our study on making life work we learned that God desires for us to gain wisdom and understanding. One of the ways that we are able to gain understanding is to manage our anger. It is pretty simple if you stop to think about it. When we develop some patience and gain control of our emotions in stressful situations, we are able to properly analyze the situation and understand it and the people it involves a whole lot clearer and better. When this happens, our reaction to stressful situations may be more peaceful and our emotions and words don’t get out of control.
When we gain control of our emotions and we are able to manage our anger we gain understanding.
We are able to understand how God desires us to handle the situation
Throughout the Bible, God gives to us practical instruction for handling every situation that comes our way. When we begin to understand how God desires for us to live we gain control of our lives to live fully for him.
So when “go time” comes and all of our buttons have been pushed and the anger is about to erupt, if we have an understanding of God’s word we know that we need to stop and take a deep breath and approach the situation the way God wants us to.
We will be able to understand other people’s points of view
Have you ever gotten involved in an argument with say, your spouse or a neighbor or co-worker and not have a clue of what they were talking about or even why they were saying what they were saying? Sometimes we can become so enraged and upset that we don’t take the time to hear what they other person involved in the argument is saying because we are busy thinking about our rebuttal to their argument.
This happens with me. Not that I argue with people a lot because I don’t, but when I do this is the situation for me and I would venture to say that this is the case with some of you. Just the other day I was speaking with a good friend of mine and he was telling me about, let’s just call it a “discussion” that he had with his wife. Sometimes, just like in any marriage, these “discussions” can become heated and argumentative, thus was the case with my friend.
He said to me, “You know, whenever we get into discussions like that I really never hear what my wife is saying to me. It’s like I get into my own little world of thought and all I see are her lips moving and a muffled sound coming out.”
Upon further reflection, my friend admitted that the reason he doesn’t hear his wife is because he is always thinking about his next comment or a way to defend himself and to rebuttal her side of the argument.
He then went on to say:
“There are times, however, when our discussions are argumentative and do not become heated. We both gain some composure and sit down to talk about the situation. It is during these times that I am able to think clearly and really understand what she is saying and why she is saying it. But it is only when I am able to manage my anger that this happens. Understanding of the situation is possible for me.”
We will be able to understand other people’s situations
Have you ever just had a really bad day? Or maybe you’ve had a really bad week or month or whatever. When things don’t seem to be going right either in our personal, spiritual or professional lives, our thinking isn’t always clear or sometimes our words and actions reflect how bad things area at that time.
If we are patient people, as this verse in Proverbs suggests, we will be able to stop and consider other people when confronted with a situation that may push our buttons. A patient person will stop to think that maybe the person to whom their anger may be directed may just be having a bad day, week, month, year or whatever. But when we are patient, we are able to consider others and their situations and thus be able to control our anger towards them.
Lastly, when we develop patience in our lives:
We will stop to think before we act
How many times have you put your foot in your mouth, or really over reacted to a situation and then felt like a total idiot after the dust settled and everything was over? Don’t look at me like this has never happened to you because I am sure that it has. We all do this, we over react when we don’t need to.
It’s like the old Three Stooges episode where Moe, Larry & Curly are interior decorators who are remodeling an old house. In the episode, Larry walks into a room and trips on a bucket of water and he falls and the water flies all over him. When he gets to his feet he begins to really give it to Moe & Curly and yells at them about how he could have been hurt and started yelling and asked them, “What imbecile, what idiot, who put that bucket there. And in the middle of his tirade realizes that he put the bucket there and just sort of gets quiet and walks away.
We all have been guilty at one point or another of losing our cool and having no patience and fling off the handle only to realize that there is no need to. So the writer of Proverbs says that when we develop patience in our lives, this will be less of an issue in for us.
When we are patient, we become understanding and this serves to help us control or manage our anger.
But on the flip side of the understanding part of this verse, the writer says:
When we don’t manage our anger, it causes us to act foolish & do things either we normally wouldn’t do or will regret.
Anger can be hurtful both to others and to us. The things that can come out of our mouths when someone pushes our buttons the wrong way are amazing. Often times we think that kids can be cruel in how they treat others and what they say to them but we adults can be just as cruel and it all happens because we lose our cool and fail to manage our anger. I’ll illustrate when this happens:
The house is a mess and your wife has had her hands full with the kids all day. You’ve had a bad day at work and when you get home dinner isn’t made and you just let your wife have it. “If you would do a little more around here, this place wouldn’t be such a mess.” Or, “If you would get your head out of the TV and stop watching those dumb soaps and Oprah all day then maybe dinner would be ready on time.” The truth of the situation is that she has been cleaning all day and dealing with the kids which would give her no time to sit around and watch TV.
The hurt that can happen because of this can be devastating. When we do not manage our anger and fly off the handle we do things and say things that can hurt and hurt deeply that in turn make us look like a fool.
Our foolishness can also come out in our actions as well. Have you ever done something foolish when you were mad only to later be totally embarrassed by it? I have, and I’m sure many of you are recalling a time in your life when this happened to you.
I am a huge sports fan and I love to both watch and play sports; hockey in particular. Hockey is my favorite sport and for 10 years I played street hockey in the South Jersey Ball Hockey League. I can remember one time when I lost my cool and made a total fool of myself. I had just been called for a penalty and I was as guilty as sin. But instead of going quietly to the penalty box I started a huge argument with the referee. I was so angry that I was red in the face and spit was flying out of my mouth and I banged my stick real hard against the boards and then finally I took my place in the penalty box to serve my 2 minute penalty.
As I was sitting in the box I regained my composure and I realized how much of an idiot I was. I felt as if I were a 2 year old throwing a temper tantrum because I didn’t get my own way. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t want to come out of the box let alone face the referee again. But I did and apologized for my actions.
My point is this: When we lose our cool and throw a fit or hit something or even someone or whatever the case, we are playing the part of a fool and usually end up regretting doing what we have done.
This applies to every area of life. We do it at work when we have a disagreement with someone. We throw a tirade at a co-worker or a supervisor because we don’t like something even though they are not the ones that caused your anger. We do it at school, in the store, on the athletic field or wherever. But when we lose our cool and fail to manage our anger we, as the writer of Proverbs says, act like a fool. Listen to what else Proverbs says about this sort of behavior.
Proverbs 29:22 - “An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins.”
Proverbs 14:17 - “A quick-tempered man does foolish things, and a crafty man is hated.”
When we have a quick temper and lose our cool real easy, we do some pretty foolish things. We do this such as:
Say hurtful things
I shared an illustration earlier about this.
Make unwise decisions
Sometimes in our anger we can make some unwise decisions because we aren’t thinking straight. There is a great example of this found in the Old Testament book of Judges in the Bible. Let me give you the background of the story and then share with you the verses that show an unwise decision made out of anger.
This is the story of one of the leaders of Israel named Jephthah. He was a mighty warrior and when the nation of Israel got into some trouble they summoned his services to lead them to victory over their enemies. So Jephthah agreed and sent a message to the king of the country they were fighting asking for the reason his country was waging war on Israel and demanding that the king give back to Israel the land that is theirs.
So upon reading the message, the Bible says that the king of the Ammonites pretty much just laughed and told Jephthah to go pound sand because he isn’t going to hand anything over to Israel.
Jephthah was so enraged by the response of the Ammonit king that he made an unwise decision by way of a vow to God. This was his vow, which is found in
Judges 11:30 – 31: “And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
Now that doesn’t sound like it was an unwise decision, in fact it sounds quite admirable. That is until we see what it was that came out to meet him upon his return from victory. Pick it up in verse 34 – 35.
Judges 11:34-35: “When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh my daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break.”
So as a result of making a decision out of anger, Jephthah lost his only child. Making unwise decisions in the midst of our anger can be devastating. I could go on and on and give you story after story both from the Bible and life in the 21st century of people who have done some really foolish things because they were not able to manage their anger. So the writer of Proverbs tells us that we need to be patient people so that we can avoid doing foolish things.
Lastly, the writer of Proverbs has this to say about not being able to manage anger:
If we don’t manage our anger, we may lose control of our lives
Proverbs 25:28 – “Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.”
In the days that the book of Proverbs was written, a huge wall made out of stone that was almost impossible to get over because it was so high enclosed cities. This wall served as a form of protection against outsiders and prevented anyone from taking over the city. This wall was their protection.
In our lives, when we have self control and we can manage our anger we are protected from doing things that may harm us or others. When we have self-control we also are able to act wisely and have control over what goes on in our lives. However, Proverbs says that if we lack self control we are like a city in the days of the Bible that lost its protection because it’s wall was broken down.
If a city’s walls were broken down, they were subject to conquest from an opposing army and they had no more control over their city or who came into it. So is the same when we lose our self-control. When we lose our self-control, we are susceptible to outside influence and lose control of our actions and sometimes lose control of our lives.
Take for instance someone who has really bad road rage and who on top of that has had a really bad day. Someone cuts them off in traffic and they really lose their cool and they also lose their self-control. One thing leads to another and the next thing you know a police officer is pulling this person off of another because he has just beaten the daylights out of them. He loses his self-control and he loses control of his actions.
In extreme cases someone really can lose control of their life by losing their self-control. They can lose it and do something so horrible that they end up in prison and really do lose control of their life.
So far I have shared with you the downside to not managing our anger, but I want you to know that the Bible and the book of Proverbs have some positive things to say regarding anger and our management of it. We find that there are some benefits to managing our anger.
The first benefit of managing our anger, according to the writer of Proverbs is this:
When we manage our anger, it leads to becoming wise
Proverbs 29:11 – “A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.”
Proverbs 19:11- “A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.”
Of all the life issues we have looked at in the book of Proverbs that really make life work the way God intended it to, the single most important quality or character trait to obtain that is the key to everything is to wisdom. God desires for us to be wise in every aspect of life because it leads to living a fully committed life for Him, and managing our anger; becoming patient people allows for this to happen.
Think about it for a second. Wisdom is putting knowledge into practice. When we encounter situations in life that cause us to get mad or display our anger, we know inside that we shouldn’t react in an angry or violent way, yet sometimes we do. If wisdom is putting knowledge into practice, then if we know that we shouldn’t let our anger get out of control, we need to put that into practice which leads to patience, which in turn leads to us being wise in the area of life known as anger management.
When we manage our anger we are applying wisdom to our lives and life begins to work the way God intended it to.
When we manage our anger, we are able to think and act clearly
Proverbs 15:18 – “A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel.”
When we are cool and level headed we think clearly and are able to make the right decisions. But when we are hot heads it is easy to stir up anger and cause problems in life for others and ourselves.
I once heard the story of 2 neighbors. One neighbor was an old farmer and the other was a young businessman. Turns out that the businessman, for some reason, did not like his neighbor the farmer. Having horses, the businessman figured he would take out his dislike on his neighbor by dumping the waste from the horses stable in the farmers yard. So, out of anger, once a month the farmer would get a pile of horse waste in his back yard. Now the farmer could have gotten really mad at this and flung the waste all over the businessman’s yard. After all, he had every right to. But instead, the old farmer was patient and decided that he would use this to his advantage. So he planted his garden in the back of his yard and each month received a free supply of fertilizer courtesy of his irate neighbor and he enjoyed the benefits of his neighbor’s anger each time he picked food from his garden. He avoided a quarrel and was better off for it.
So how do we do it? What does the Bible say about how we are to control our anger? I’d like to share with you 2 simple ways that will help us to manage our anger well, and as you may have guessed they both come from the book of Proverbs.
The first step in being wise in this area of controlling our anger is to not become friends with someone who cannot manage their anger.
Proverbs 22:24-25 – “Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared.”
I like how the New Living Translation words it:
Proverbs 22:24-25 – “Keep away from angry, short-tempered people, 25or you will learn to be like them and endanger your soul.”
Do you remember back to when you were a child or a teenager? Did you have a hero? You know, someone who you looked up to and wanted to be like? For some it was a super hero Superman and for others it was Spiderman or GI Joe or maybe even the Lone Ranger. Still, for others maybe it was a movie star or TV personality or a professional athlete.
Whatever the case, chances are most of us had someone in our early childhood or teenage years who we wanted to be like. And our actions and the way we talked and how we dressed and wore our hair reflected that of our hero or role model.
I can remember mine. Actually, I didn’t start to want to model anyone until I was in my teenage years; I guess I was sort of a late bloomer. And, in fact there were 2 people whom I looked up to and wanted to be like. Since I was involved in sports, naturally they would come from the arena of athletics. To be even more specific, I played baseball and hockey so they came from each sport respectfully.
The first was Lenny Dykstra. Do you remember him? He played for the Phillies when they went to the World Series in 1993. Well, anyway, I liked Lenny Dykstra so much and loved the way he played that I wanted to be just like him. So everything I did on the baseball field emulated Lenny Dykstra. I wore my uniform like him, I played hard and got dirty like he did, and I even modeled his batting stance and fielding stance. About the only thing that was different between the two of us was that he was left handed and made a few million dollars more than me each year, but other than that we were the same. I modeled him so much that the guys on my team said that I was beginning to look like him and I was given the nickname “Nails”, which was the same nickname that Lenny Dykstra had.
I also played hockey so the other person I looked up to and modeled was “The Great One”, Wayne Gretzky. I modeled everything he did as well from the equipment he wore to the way he wore his uniform. I even wore the number 99 for a while. When you looked at me you could tell that I wanted to be like Wayne Gretzky. The only thing different between the two of us was that he scored about 25 more goals than me each year in a higher level of play, and he made a few more million dollars than me each year as well.
So what is my point? My point is that when we look up to someone or when we become friends with someone, we begin to pick up some of their habits and tend to begin acting and thinking the way they do. Think about your relationship with your spouse of boyfriend or girlfriend. When you started dating chances are that most of you began to think alike and act alike and maybe even begin to like all of the same things. When you become close with someone you begin to act as they do.
The writer of Proverbs is saying in this verse, “Watch out who you make friends with, choose them wisely because if you don’t and you make friends with a hot head and someone who cannot control their anger than it will rub off on you and you to will soon be unable to manage your anger. So as we learned a few weeks ago, we need to choose our friends wisely, and not become friends with hot headed people.
Respond to potentially anger displaying situations gently and peacefully
Proverbs 15:1 – “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
Exercise wisdom and patience. When we are able to manage our anger life just seems to work out better. There is a time to display our anger in the right way, but for the most part we need to manage it properly. When we are faced with a potentially explosive situation and someone is up in our face and pushes all of our buttons, the writer of Proverbs tells us the way to avoid all of the dangers that come with losing our cool is to respond peacefully. When we do, in most cases, it leads to confrontation being avoided and no harmful words are said; no harmful actions are taken and we don’t put our foot in our mouths and no one gets mad at us.
Ultimately when we are able to manage our anger and respond with gentle, peaceful answers we will discover that life will begin to work the way God intended it to.
Christ was our example of how to live. Throughout His life He was able to manage His anger. As you read about Christ in the Bible you will see when it is right to become angry and how you should handle it.
The name Christian literally means “Little Christ”. Those of you who have committed your life to live fully for Him, today I challenge you to model the management of your anger the way Christ did.
To those of you who have never made a commitment to God to live your life fully for Him, you will discover that you will be able to manage your anger better and that you will receive God’s best for your life if you will just turn your life over to Him because more than anything else, He wants to have a relationship with you.
Invitation
