Keeping Your Cool…When Your Anger Is Hot!: Practical Steps to Temper Fiery Emotions (6 page)

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Authors: June Hunt

BOOK: Keeping Your Cool…When Your Anger Is Hot!: Practical Steps to Temper Fiery Emotions
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The Four Sources That Fuel Angerʹs Fire
Clearly, Philip was being ravaged by his own smoldering anger. To quench the flame, he would need to examine the sources of his anger and deal courageously with each one.
Imagine that a chair in your home caught fire. You wouldn’t apply water to the smoke or to the tops of the flames. No, you’d grab an extinguisher and aim squarely at the burning cushions—toward the source of the blaze.
That’s the approach we must take to quench the fire of our anger.
Anger, you see, is a
secondary
emotion. It always comes from
somewhere,
but too often we can’t see past the smoke and flames—a rude driver, a gossiping “friend,” a procrastinating spouse, or tragically, in Philip’s case, a horrible injustice—to identify the true source.
Unless we address our anger at its source:
injustice, fear, hurt,
and
frustration,
it will continue to burn us—and others. Unless we are able to release all the anger in our bowl, we’ll never find lasting peace. So let’s examine each of the four sources of anger, one by one, by getting to know the man in the Bible whom God used more miraculously than any other—a man “whom the LORD knew face to face,”
2
a man God considered His friend.
God’s HotTempered Hero
This man was humble, highly acclaimed, and
hottempered.
Can God use people with anger issues for His purposes? Consider the following verse: “No one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.”
3
And yet, even Moses experienced tragic consequences for combustible anger. Here’s his story…
The day begins like any other day, but ends like no other—for on this day, Moses gives full vent to his anger. And, as a result, he finds himself running for his life.
Moses becomes part of a mistreated minority grievously persecuted not for doing something wrong, but for being perceived as a threat. Raised with privilege in the palace of a king, he had been spared the heartless treatment inflicted on his kinsmen. But watching the injustice day after day and year after year finally becomes too much for him to bear.
When Moses sees one of his own people suffering an inhumane beating at the hands of an Egyptian, Moses is filled with rage. He snaps. In an instant, he kills the Egyptian and hides the body in the sand. But his angry, impetuous act is not committed in secret. When news of the murder reaches Pharaoh, Moses fears for his life and flees.
4
When you look at the life of Moses, you can see both the power and the problems inherent in anger. Has anger ever clouded your judgment to the point that you reacted rashly…and lived to regret it? Ultimately, you have the choice to
act
wisely or to
react
foolishly. In his lifetime, Moses did both. Like him, you too can face the fiery anger within and learn to keep it under control. In doing so, you will demonstrate wisdom because…
“A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control”
(PROVERBS 29:11).
Source #1—How Can Injustice Ignite Anger?
Understandably, Moses felt anger over the unjust treatment of his Hebrew brothers, but what he did with that anger put him in danger. Moses allowed his anger to overpower him. Acting on impulse, he committed a crime—murder.
Although Moses was right about the injustice, he was wrong in his reaction. His hot-blooded volatility revealed how unprepared he was for the task God had planned for him. Consequently, God kept Moses on the back side of a desert for the next 40 years so he would realize that rescuing his own people
in his own way
would ultimately fail.
Moses needed to learn this vital lesson well before God would turn him into a godly leader—the powerful leader through whom God would accomplish His own will
in His own supernatural way.
In truth, Moses had tried to earn the Israelites’ respect by coming to their rescue. Instead, his murderous rage earned only their disrespect.
“Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not”
(ACTS 7:25).

 

The novelist Charles Dickens wrote in
Great Expectations
, “In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.”
5
How true! Young children who probably wouldn’t know the meaning of the word
rights
are very articulate when it comes to arguing for their right to a toy or their fair share of ice cream. We are born with a well-defined sense of the things and treatment we are entitled to—an awareness we never lose in life.
We who are part of Western society are among the most rights-oriented people in history. We have bravely championed civil rights, human rights, women’s rights, animal rights, voting rights, and property rights. This includes the right to free speech, free assembly, and free religious expression—and rightly so! What, then, do we feel when our rights, or those of someone we care about, have been violated? We feel
angry
—and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
As with anything that fuels our anger, however, there is danger in letting our outrage grow to such proportions that it erupts like a volcano with a flow of regrettable consequences. There is an immense difference between mounting a campaign to legislate against an injustice and picking up a gun to shoot those who perpetuate injustice. Surrender your “right” to handle injustice in your own way to the Savior who
is
“the Way.”
My Feelings of Injustice
While I despised my father, I adored my mother. She was everything he wasn’t. When he tore into people with harsh, hateful words, she waited for the opportunity to say soothing words of healing.
To me, my father was the epitome of cruelty, and my mother was the epitome of kindness. I had a mountainous pile of angry memories of my father, and nary a one of my mother.
So, when he treated her unjustly, I would become indignant at the unfairness of it all and determined to make him see how wrong he was. After all, someone had to set him straight and come to my mother’s defense!
Of course, my lofty aspirations were far above my nonexistent power to accomplish. And my feeble efforts served only to confront my father’s infidelity and land me in boarding school, which only increased my mother’s suffering. The lesson learned: Never confront my father again about his unjust treatment of anyone, not even my mother. Instead, I harbored hateful thoughts toward him for years.
Source #2—How Can Fear Ignite Anger?
Imagine leading some two million people through a desert with all of them looking to you to meet both their physical and spiritual needs. That was the case with the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, which turned out to be the high calling of Moses. While Moses was setting up camp at the base of a mountain, God called him to climb the mountain and meet with Him because He wanted to give Moses the Ten Commandments and other beneficial laws.
While Moses met with God, unbeknownst to Moses, the very people God had instructed him to lead had turned their hearts away from God. They melted some gold, molded it into the shape of a calf, and merrily worshipped it! God interrupted this meeting with Moses to inform him of what had happened. Flushed with anger and fear, Moses rushed down the mountain to confront the people. Exodus 32:19 states, “When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain.”
Moses reacted in anger because he was full of
fear
. He was afraid God’s righteous anger against the disobedient people would result in their destruction. He knew they needed to…
“Worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire’ ”
(HEBREWS 12:28-29).
My Feelings of Fear
Money is power. That belief kept me in constant fear of my financially successful father. Whenever his multiple affairs and harsh treatment left my mother in tears, he asserted, “Tears are a sign of mental illness.” On numerous occasions he took her to be evaluated by a psychiatrist.
Knowing mentally ill people were often hospitalized for long periods of time, I lived in constant fear of coming home from school one day and finding my mother had been taken away to be hospitalized by some doctor my father had paid off.
As a result, I made sure I never cried. And I began a “defense fund” for my mother in case my father ever had her declared mentally ill. I wanted to be ready, if necessary, to hire a lawyer to get her out of the hospital. I put in this fund every penny, nickel, dime, and quarter I could come up with—regularly stealing a few coins from the loose change my father left on his night table.
The fear of my father was balanced only by my anger toward him. And even though I never needed to use my defense fund, it was years before I would let myself cry or spend the money I had meticulously saved.
Fear is potent fuel for runaway anger, but our commitment to cling to God’s fear-quenching love is more potent by far.
Fear is potent fuel for runaway anger, but our commitment to cling to God’s fear-quenching love is more potent by far. The Bible explains it this way: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.”
6
Source #3—How Can Hurt Ignite Anger?
Betrayal by anyone certainly hurts our feelings, but betrayal by a friend deeply wounds the soul. Everyone expects opposition from those on the outside, but what do you do when opposition comes from within—from among your own circle, your closest confidants, your trusted few?
Moses was a national leader who knew the hurt of such betrayal. He had led wisely, demonstrated courage, and won the confidence of his people. He was there for them—and they knew it.
However, his authority was undermined by a subordinate who created such dissension that he successfully stole the loyalty of 250 others. Those whom Moses had trusted throughout the years, those who knew him best, those who should have been most loyal, turned against him. In response, however, Moses did not express his anger by taking personal revenge. He did not react impulsively. Rather, he appealed to the Lord to act on his behalf.
“Moses became very angry and said to the LORD, ‘Do not accept their offering. I have not…wronged any of them’ ”
(NUMBERS 16:15).

 

Although justifiably angry, Moses had learned how to face the fiery anger within and to
act
wisely rather than
react
foolishly. He restrained his rage, poured out his heart, and pleaded with the Lord to deal with his offenders. He released his bowl of anger before the Lord, and the justice of God purified the polluted political situation as with fire. God took up Moses’ cause, destroyed his betrayers, and defended his honor. Moses refused to take revenge. Instead, he allowed the Lord to be his avenger because God had given this promise:
“It is mine to avenge; I will repay”
(DEUTERONOMY 32:35).

 

Think back to the last time you hit your thumb with a hammer or whacked your head on a low-hanging kitchen cabinet. I can guarantee your reaction was immediate—the intense pain you felt was quickly followed by a surge of anger
.
Anger follows pain for one reason: to help you make the cause of the hurt go away. It’s a useful and necessary response. If you accidentally hit yourself with the hammer, your momentary anger is directed
inward
. “I can’t believe I did that! Be more careful! Watch what you’re doing!” If someone else is attacking you with a hammer, your anger is focused
outward
in fear—preparing you to eliminate the threat by either fighting back or running away. That’s called the fight-or-flight response.
The exact same anger reflex occurs when we are hurt
emotionally
. The difference is that sometimes the cause (hurt) and effect (anger) are not so clearly linked. Physical pain is straightforward: “I’m angry—you just slapped my face! Don’t you dare do it again!” But emotional wounds are more subtle, and we deal with them differently—less directly. Typically we try to ignore them, blame ourselves for them, or privately nurse them…for long periods of time.
Physical pain rarely makes us feel like a failure or a fool, but we’re frequently embarrassed or ashamed of our emotional hurts. As a result, we are prone to leave our heartaches unattended, and then they start piling up like dry deadwood in the forest. There they become fuel for the kind of anger that is no longer beneficial, but dangerous and needlessly destructive. It sets the stage for explosive behavior we didn’t even know was in us.
My Feelings of Hurt
My three siblings and I had virtually no personal relationship with our father. We never climbed up in his lap or reached out for his hand. We never heard “I love you,” or “I believe in you.” We were never tucked into bed or given a good night kiss by him. We never shared our hopes and dreams with him or sought his counsel or comfort when troubled.
We occupied the same house, but did not share a home.
Were it not for our mother, we would have been void of any emotional nurturing, spiritual encouragement, or physical affection. We had a father but never a daddy—a provider but never a protector, a critic but never a confidant, a bully but never a hero. The void I experienced was deadening, the hurt was demeaning, and the anger was damaging.
Emotional wounds come in many shapes and sizes and all too often leave us angry. Handling that anger in healthy, appropriate ways begins by first acknowledging our pain and then allowing God to bring healing.

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