Keeping Your Cool…When Your Anger Is Hot!: Practical Steps to Temper Fiery Emotions (8 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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Finding What Fuels Your Anger
Philip’s call clearly illustrates the kind of crippling confusion unresolved anger can create when we don’t have a ready answer to the all-important question: Where does anger come from? For many people, any one of the fiery trials Philip faced would be more than sufficient to stoke the flames of fury. Perhaps you recognize one or more of the four sources of anger in your own life. But there’s no need to live in dread of the next spark or to feel helpless to prevent another raging inferno. Know what fuels your anger. Sift through and clean up the emotional debris in your life, and you can prevent a harmful flare-up.
God indeed hears our anguished cries and heals our hurting hearts. All we have to do is humble ourselves before Him…and ask. Trust in His infinite love and care and in His promise: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
With regard to the cause of my father’s anger, it was many years after his death when I learned some eye-opening information from one of his nephews. I always found it curious that my father spoke little of his family or childhood, but it never occurred to me to ask him or my mother about it. All I knew was that he left home in his early teens and never returned.
Because he was more than twice my mother’s age when I was born, I never knew his parents or siblings. I learned from his nephew that my paternal grandfather was extremely physically abusive, especially toward my father. On more than one occasion, my father sought refuge in the home of his older brother and spent numerous nights sleeping on a pew in a nearby church.
Needless to say, it was an “Aha!” moment for me. I felt a combination of sadness and relief. The mental imagery of any son being driven out of his home by an abusive father tore at my heartstrings. Now I had some understanding of his angry, hurtful ways. Hurt people
hurt people
.
For the first time, I saw my father as a hurting little boy in a grown-up body. Although I had forgiven him many years before, at that moment I felt compassion for him welling up in me.
How I thank God for caring enough about my healing journey to gift me with powerful insights into my father’s past pain. Clearly, He is not finished with me yet.
The Sun: God ’s Kitchen
The weather forecast on the surface of the sun is always the same:
Hot!
The temperature there is around 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s 100 times hotter than the most sweltering summer day here on earth, and 10 times more heat than it takes to melt solid rock into molten lava. In other words, it is hot enough to consume
anything
that comes too close.
But the destructive capacity of the sun is only one side of the coin. Flip it over and you’ll see what astronomers have learned in recent decades: We need the sun—and other stars like it—for more than warmth on a cold winter day. Its blazing heat is essential for nuclear fusion, which turns abundant hydrogen into all the other elements in the universe. Without stars, there would be no oxygen, nitrogen, or carbon—upon which all life depends. Without the sun, there would be no Earth as we know it.

 

When the incendiary heat of anger has exploded in your life, it is easy to see only the threat of suffering and loss. But that same energy can be harnessed for positive change in your life. Trust God to show you how to put your anger to work—for good.
4
ASHES TO ASHES
The High Cost of Our Unresolved Anger
“Hottempered people must pay the penalty.
If you rescue them once, you will have to do it again”
(PROVERBS 19:19 NLT).

 

IF BURNING ANGER came in a bottle, no doubt we would bury it in the deepest hole in the most remote place on the planet—but only after sealing it and labeling it with multiple warnings. We might stamp words such as
explosive
,
volatile,
and
combustible
all over the bottle—or possibly
hot as blazes
and
active time bomb—
so sensibly minded people wouldn’t dare open it.
But rather than coming in a bottle, anger shows up in various sizes, shapes, and shades without labels or warnings. And, like fire, it can be dangerously mesmerizing. Who hasn’t lit a candle and become entranced by the flickering flame? As it dances on the wick, it’s a delight to see, but a danger to touch.
Anger is a lot like the flame of a candle—it’s associated with “heat” of varying degrees. Each hue of the flame is a different temperature, but no matter the blues, yellows, oranges, and reds, the one thing we all know is that the flame is
hot
—and if we put a finger into the flame we will get burned!
And so it is with anger—there are varying degrees of it. And the higher the degree of heat, the deeper the degree of hurt. And even more so, the wider the area of hurt, the greater the severity of harm. The book of Proverbs gives us this most graphic word-picture: “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?”
1
What a scene! Obviously fire in and of itself is not bad—a campfire is wonderful, but a “lap fire” is dreadful!
Let me be clear about this: Anger in and of itself can be helpful, but anger out of control can be horrible.
The Victimes of Anger
Few of us intend to hurt others—even when we are angry. We lash out, but hope there won’t be any lingering effects. Few of us
want
to cause havoc and heartache for those around us. But the truth is, extreme anger is very much like a bomb—once it explodes, destruction is inevitable. It damages everything in its path, including relationships and reputations, people and professions, even property.
This isn’t some abstract academic theory. By the time we reach adulthood, we’ve all seen it happen many times—on the playground, in the classroom, both at home and at work. Every time incendiary anger isn’t snuffed out, the list of losses grows larger, the list of victims grows longer.
Counselors spend countless hours helping victims cope—the child of an angry parent, the spouse of an angry mate, or the target of an angry boss. Fortunately, with God’s healing hand, those wounded by the flaming arrows of anger can move beyond
coping
to
healing
.
But it’s just as important to remember the not-so-obvious victims of anger. I’m talking about the ones responsible for the emotional carnage. When surveying the “scene of the crime,” we divide ourselves into victims on one side and victimizers on the other. But our all-seeing, all-knowing God sees each heart in need of help and healing—the hurting hearts of both the abused and the abusers.
I believe that is how God saw my family—not five victims of one angry man, but six victims of anger. We all needed help and healing.
Proverbs 22:24-25 warns, “Do not make friends with a hottempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared.” God is telling us that relationships with hottempered people always take a heavy toll—not just on those who are the target of rage, but also on those who feel powerless to stop the anger boiling up around them.
Plain and simple: You cannot stay around smoke without smelling like smoke. Likewise, you cannot stay around anger without taking on some characteristics of anger.
This principle was played out in my own life. My father’s anger ignited my anger, which then resulted in anger controlling both of us. This is not the kind of healthy “sharing” God intends for dads and daughters. The very thing I hated in my dad took root in me, although I didn’t see it at the time. Feeling totally justified in my anger, I didn’t see any similarities between his anger and mine. I was right. He was wrong. But, in truth, we were both wrong. Neither of us allowed anger to accomplish good in us.
The High Price of Anger
Jesus said, “Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
2
Life naturally brings us plenty of problems, and we can’t afford to make matters worse with the self-inflicted hardship of unrestrained rage. Let’s examine six ways that we pay a high price for our anger:
1. Anger Destroys Relationships
“I want a divorce” was the last thing Rob expected to hear after returning home from a three-day Promise Keepers conference. But that evening Rob’s wife, Judy, was unusually quiet. When he asked her why, her anguish poured out.
Judy explained that during the days Rob had been gone, a new sense of peace had settled over their household: “During the past three days, I’ve felt better about myself than I’ve ever felt during our marriage.” Missing were his explosive outbursts of anger—and the anxiety they caused. For Rob, this painful moment of truth cut deeply.
Soon afterward, a marriage counselor identified the “pressure cooker” issue: Rob had a problem with unresolved anger that fueled his frequent rages. His verbal rantings had left Judy feeling wounded and fearful—not only for her own well-being, but for that of their young son, Tyler, as well.
Rob’s reaction? “I got angry at the counselor!”
Several months later, unable to resolve their differences, the couple divorced. But by the grace of God, while Rob’s marriage had ended, his journey of healing had just begun.
Uncontrolled anger is deadly to relationships because it undermines the very conditions necessary to create and maintain trust between people. Couples can ride out the storms of life together so long as trust rides with them, but unbridled anger destroys trust and makes the storms too threatening.
Healthy relationships require freedom from fear. To open our life to another person is, by definition, to make ourself vulnerable. Like a fire victim being asked to jump from a rooftop above a raging inferno, we must be able to trust the one who says he is ready to catch us and break our fall.
If that person periodically lets go and we get hurt, the inevitable fear and uncertainty we feel will rob us of the strength and confidence we need to stay committed through tough times.
Random outbursts of raw anger can be terrifying. They create an environment in which everyone is guarded and ready to either fight or flee. This constant state of alertness saps vital trust, energy, and spontaneity from our lives. And its impact on our relationships? “Ashes to ashes.”
After his divorce—through circumstances only God could orchestrate—Rob met Jack, one of our enthusiastic Hope for the Heart team members. Learning of Jack’s part in our ministry, Rob eagerly related how God had used Hope for the Heart to change his life. Humbled and inspired, Jack invited Rob to come to our weekly staff devotions. There, our team had the privilege of hearing the rest of Rob’s story.
During a sleepless night a few months after his divorce, Rob turned on the radio. Our
Hope in the Night
radio program was airing, and the topic just happened to be anger. “I’d never heard the topic of anger approached from a biblical perspective. That broadcast was Godsent… no doubt about it.”
Rob listened intently, then ordered our set of audio recordings and Biblical Counseling Keys on anger. With those in hand, he reserved an extended stay in a hotel room for a time of intense reading, listening, and praying. His goal was to grasp God’s principles on how to uproot his past anger and handle his present hostilities. Faithfully, God began to reveal the severity of Rob’s problem.
“It hit me like a ton of bricks: I responded to people—especially my ex-wife—with rage, just erupting like a volcano.” At 2:00 Sunday morning, Rob penned this journal entry: “Just like the eruption of a volcano, the hot lava pours down the mountain, scorching everything in sight. It changes the composition of the rock by its heat forever. Its damage is lasting and leaves black, ugly, scarred rock. My explosive anger scorches everyone in sight—my ex-wife, my son, my mother, employees—it scars them for life and leaves our relationships black and ugly. However, Christ can scrape away…scrape away the black outer covering through me as I forgive those who have made me angry and as I work to restore my relationships.”
Rob said that over the next several months and years, “God gradually revealed to me the source of my anger, which was hurt and rejection from my childhood and teenage years. When I raged at Judy, I’d been trying to control her so she couldn’t reject me. But in reality, I was making things worse.”
Rob did the difficult work necessary to tame his toxic anger, and he continues to reap the rewards. His relationship with his son is blossoming in an atmosphere of trust and loving discipline. Though Judy has remarried, the two are now able to communicate openly so they can parent productively. In fact, Judy recently wrote Rob a letter, thanking him for his compassionate and Christlike attitude in the years following their divorce.
“I’m a work in progress,” Rob told our team, concluding our inspirational visit. “I still get angry, but now I’m able to process my pain. Had it not been for your Biblical Counseling Keys, I wouldn’t have changed. They brought healing through the application of God’s Word. After years of burning others with my out-of-control anger, I finally know how to express my feelings constructively. Your ministry gave me the tools I needed. My dream now is to help others, along with their families, who are suffering just like I was.”
Although it took the loss of his marriage, Rob finally got the message. He sought help from God, enlisted the support of a Christian counselor, and took responsibility for winning back the trust and respect of those he loved. He did this by rooting out unresolved anger and gaining control over his temper. As good as that is, how much better it would have been had he faced his anger earlier and spared others the scars they now carry as a result of his out-of-control tongue.
Like a bridge subjected to repeated earthquakes, relationships will
always
suffer damage in the presence of unrestrained anger. Chronic anger inevitably weakens the foundation of trust. And this foundation needs to be unshakable so that close relationships can withstand life’s unpredictable tremors.

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