Learning to Dance Every Day
To Live is to Dance
Maybe Snoopy was right: To live is to dance! To dance is to live! Maybe we’d all live a lot more gracefully if we realized that it’s all a dance.
Managing your emotions is an important part of learning to live the abundant life that Jesus wants us to live. In the next few weeks we’ll explore what Jesus and the Bible says about anger, fear, loneliness, guilt, depression, and worry.
Come with us during the rest of July and August as we learn how to dance and live life abundantly as we keep our emotions in balance and first things first.
I will dance like David Danced
Anger and Rage
Too Angry To Dance
Psalms 37:8
8 Don’t get angry. Don’t be upset; it only leads to trouble.
The first murder was committed by an angry man
Genesis 4:2-8
2 After that, Eve gave birth to Cain’s brother Abel. Abel took care of flocks, and Cain became a farmer.
3 Later, Cain brought some food from the ground as a gift to God. 4 Abel brought the best parts from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD accepted Abel and his gift, 5 but he did not accept Cain and his gift. So Cain became very angry and felt rejected.
6 The LORD asked Cain, “Why are you angry? Why do you look so unhappy? 7 If you do things well, I will accept you, but if you do not do them well, sin is ready to attack you. Sin wants you, but you must rule over it.”
8 Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out into the field.” While they were out in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
Why Are You Angry and Unhappy?
6 The LORD asked Cain, “Why are you angry? Why do you look so unhappy?
Genesis 4:6
Genesis 4:4b-5
The LORD accepted Abel and his gift, 5 but he did not accept Cain and his gift. So Cain became very angry and felt rejected.
Anger is pain – expressed as rage or repressed as bitterness
The cause of the pain can be yourself – and yet still produces anger at others.
It can be expressed
It can be repressed
“Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back -- in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is thatwhat you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”
Frederick Buechner.
If you do things well…
Genesis 4:7
7 “If you do things well, I will accept you…”
Anger is not sin
Anger is a God Given emotion
Anger is a powerful emotion motivating us to action
Dr.David Seamands said “Anger is a divinely implanted emotion. Closely allied to our instinct for right, it is designed to be used for constructive spiritual purposes.
The person who cannot feel anger at evil is a person who lacks enthusiasm for good. If you cannot hate wrong, it is very questionable whether you really love righteousness. To not express anger is to not be human."
Anger can be right – Jesus and anger
Let me read to you from Mark 3:1-5. This is a passage that deals with a situation in the life of Jesus that I think is very revealing. It says:
"Another time he went into the synagogue, & a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. And Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, `Stand up in front of everyone.’"
"Then Jesus asked them, `Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?’ But they remained silent."
"He looked around at them in anger &, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts" Then Jesus said, "Stretch out your hand." And he stretched it out, & his hand was completely restored."
You see, the focus of His anger is their hearts. He is angry because of their stubborn hearts & their stubborn anger. The sun has gone down. The sun has come up. And the devil has established a foothold in their lives. And Jesus is angry at their stubborn anger.
Maybe an infusion of anger is the very thing that the church needs. To become angry at the corruption of the world. To become angry at the forces of evil. To become angry at pornography that reaches into every segment of society.
It is time for the church to become angry, with a sanctified anger, a holy anger, that is channeled in the right places.
If you do not do things well…
Genesis 4:7
“…but if you do not do them well, sin is ready to attack you. Sin wants you, but you must rule over it.”
Anger can be dangerous and destructive – to you
So here are the 5 tests to tell whether or not our anger is sinful anger.
1. Is it anger directed towards a person?
2. Is it anger without a justifiable cause?
3. Is it anger that seeks vengeance?
4. Is it anger that is cherished?
5. Is it anger that has an unforgiving spirit?
"Anger" By Aliki Barnstone Posted Tuesday, June 21, 2005
And anger reads my judgment against you.
Your smile is sour and conceals fraud.
I go on and on, watching you from a distance,
as if I were cool behind dark sunglasses
that filtered out the glare of your assessment,
while you repeat evidence against me.
I face your face but close my soul,
turn aside, walk deep into a maze,
go on watching myself, holding you at a distance,
slamming doors behind me (only I can hear).
My anger keeps you blathering inside me,
so I recite again my findings against you.
Yet we sit together at the table, each to serve
the other artfully poisoned morsels, point a fork,
and go on and on, watching the widening distance.
You say, "You should have listened to me,"
and, "But you had to be you, didn’t you?"
Then I become the witness who testifies against me.
We deliberate all night, inventing counterpoints,
narrowing our vision at spears of candlelight
and we go on and on, watching from a distance,
as we appeal, go back to discovery, retry, seek
sympathy by recounting suffering and history,
though this defense may deliver the verdict against us:
locked in argument, our embrace will pull us down
through the shades, and we’ll hold on to our grievances
and go on, too watchful, unable to get some distance,
reading and helplessly rereading the sentences against us.
Aliki Barnstone’s recent work includes her fifth book of poems, Blue Earth, and her translation, The Collected Poems of C.P. Cavafy (forthcoming in 2006). Her Web site is http://www.barnstone.com/.
Anger is Learned
As so many abused children learn, without forgiving those who hurt us, we cannot free ourselves from the grip of history. ... I have a friend whose marriage has gone through rough times. One night George passed a breaking point and emotionally exploded. He pounded the table and floor. "I hate you!" he screamed at his wife. "I won’t take it anymore! I’ve had enough! I won’t go on! I won’t let it happen! No! No! No!"
Several months later my friend woke up in the middle of the night and heard strange sounds coming from the room where his 2-year-old son slept. He went down the hall, stood outside his son’s door, and shivers ran through his flesh. In a soft voice, the 2-year-old was repeating word for word with precise inflection the climactic argument between his mother and father. "I hate you ... I won’t take it anymore ... No! No! No!"
George realized that in some awful way he had just passed on his pain and anger and unforgiveness to the next generation. ... Apart from forgiveness, the monstrous past may awake at any time from hibernation and devour the present--and even the future.
-- Philip Yancey, "Holocaust & Ethnic Cleansing," in Christianity Today, August 16, 1993, submitted by Jay Martin of Manistique, Michigan.
Anger must be controlled – by you
SUDDEN ANGER IS TO BE CONTROLLED
Telephone call in the middle of an argument
No one makes you mad – you take your pain and turn it into rage. That is a decision that you make – you and you alone.
Learning to Dance Every Day
Cain walked the earth – an angry man
Not Enough Rocks
The Academy Award-winning movie Forrest Gump has been viewed by millions of Americans. Most people remember its line, "Life is like a box of choklits," but there is another line worth noting.
One of the central characters, Jenny, returns to her old home after her father had died. The farmhouse is dilapidated and abandoned.
As she reflects on the sexual abuse that she endured as a child, she is overcome by rage and begins throwing rocks at the house until she falls to the ground in exhaustion.
The scene close with Forrest Gump sympathizing, "Sometimes there just aren’t enough rocks."
Many of use struggle with anger, and some anger seems justifiable. Yet unresolved anger leaves us reaching and crying out for more rocks. The rage is never satisfied, and contentment is never found.
Only through the power of Christ can we find the strength to lay down rocks of anger rather than needing to reach for more. -Raymond McHenery*
The anger provoking frustrations that we all face are very real. But our help is also very real.
* Christianity Online Men of Integrity 11/23/98: Rock Throwing Rage
