What is Christian anger management?
Discussion question for October 30, 2009.
We talked about anger as an emotion, not just an action. Pent up anger creates problems from the inside out. What can we actually do to reduce our anger? How do we release it at the source? What can we do to limit anger intake? What strategies will you implement in the coming week for your anger management?
Here’s my summary of our discussion.
There are several ways we can limit or reduce our anger. First, eliminate known triggers that can cause anger to flare up; some noted examples are talk radio and network news. Second, it helps to maintain healthy margins in your life, such as getting enough sleep and recreation, or reducing stress from money or time obligations. Third, “let the Word of God dwell in you richly”, think about the right things (Philippians 4:8), and be thankful.
Establishing a personality of gratitude, generosity and blessing is an effective antidote to anger. These things are to be done as preventative maintenance for best effect. They can be applied directly to the anger circumstance, but they tend to work best by accumulation over time.
It can be healthy to experience anger because it is the indicator by which we can discover its source. Getting real good at “anger management” could lead to effective anger suppression, but if the root cause is never dealt with it will show up in other ways.
Prayer and meditation can be used to allow God to reveal the source of anger. It may be an offense perpetuated against us by someone in the past. It may have been a choice on our part to pick up anger to support someone else. God may reveal it to us in a thought, memory or conviction.
To release the anger we must forgive the perpetrator and then allow God to take the anger from us. Some anger is an appropriate response to the offense against us, and even that needs to be released. Anger that is deep-seated, carrying past the event and affecting our life in the present, is not appropriate. It will dissipate when the source is released.
The emotion of anger that is allowed to become deep-seated acts as a bitter root. The root itself must be taken care of, and not just the present expression of it. When the cause of the anger remains, feeling remorse in the present expression will only be a temporary solution. The anger will get triggered again, and again, until the root of it is treated. God will take anger from us upon honest request, but He will not wrest it from our grasp.
Flash anger and deep-seated anger may both be echoes from an anger root. When it gets touched off, interrogate the source and then release it to God.