Shortly after having my second son Bruce, I realized I had a problem with anger….again. I used to have issues with anger growing up, but thought in my early twenties I had remedied the problem and just thought I’d never struggle with it again. This time I realized my anger was stemming from anxiety and it also did when I was a child.
I began asking myself what the Bible has to say about anger. Obviously it is an emotion. We got our emotions from God so He probably has something to say about the way we are to handle anger. I remember reading Ephesians 4:26-27 which reads,”’ 26 In your anger do not sin’: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.” I thought, “How do you do that. If I am angry, I’m angry and there’s probably going to be something I am going to have to say sorry about afterwards.” Also, I felt I needed to express my anger and be “real” which meant to flamboyantly show my anger….because that always helps a situation!
My first son is also a passionate person. I wanted to learn not only for myself but to be able to teach him what to do when he felt out of control and mad. One day we were sitting on his floor, he was three, talking about a situation that was making him angry. I asked him what he thought we should do with our anger. It dawned on me….we should pray. Yes, I know that sounds so simple. The words of it sound simple but putting it into practice is no small miracle. I realized if I developed the habit of going to God right at the moment that I felt the heat rising in my chest then He could probably diffuse my anger before I acted on it. Also, He could shed some light on the situation to help me see things differently.
I had heard people say, “At the moment you’re getting angry, take it to God.” I thought, “Yeah right. That’s the last thing I want to do when I am ticked off. I want to punch something and transfer these bad feelings I am having.” I almost got a punching bag for Mother’s Day that year but I couldn’t figure out where to hang it in my house to where I could reach it comfortably. And, I knew an ill-placed punching bag probably would have ticked me off too!
I remembered hearing Patsy Clairmont, a Christian speaker and author, talk about having anger issues when her son was little. She said when he would frustrate her she would say, “Mommy needs to go talk to Jesus.” He finally caught on and one time when he could tell she was frustrated said, “Mom, let’s pray!” I wanted to teach the same thing to my son. So, I began to develop the habit of going to God at the beginning of my anger and telling him I was going to go “talk to Jesus”.
The other day, I told Wayne I was going to go talk to Jesus because I was frustrated. When I was done I returned to the living room to play with Wayne. He told me he was playing with the ball with dad and I was talking to Jesus. I told him I was done because I was happy inside now. I told my husband I hoped that Wayne would equate mom frustrated → mom talking to Jesus → mom happy inside. My husband said, “Yeah, what’s going to happen is he is going to go to church and hear all these people talk about talking to Jesus. He’s going to think, ‘Man, this is one angry group of people!’”
How funny and true! We are all human. We all make mistakes. We all need a Savior……
So what do you go away and talk to Jesus about during your day?
