If you grew up in a house where somebody always flew off the handle, odds are you learned to do the same. Anger gets handed down like an old family recipe. It can stop with you, and Scripture shows how: be "swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath" (James 1:19).
I used to be the one who blew up. I got mad at the drop of a hat, and if you handed me the hat, I'd drop it myself. It was modeled to me at times, and for a while it was all I knew. Then I started practicing that verse, and it changed my life.
Early in our marriage, Donna and I could get heated over something as small as cornbread. I'll tell you how that ended in a minute.
NO. Ephesians 4:26 actually says, "Be ye angry, and sin not." The goal is to steward it under the Holy Spirit's direction so it doesn't turn into sin.
Jesus took anger seriously. In Matthew 5:21-22, He moves the commandment against murder from the hands to the heart, and warns that contemptuous words like "thou fool" put a person in danger of judgment. I've written about how the words you keep repeating end up shaping your life, and that goes double in an argument.
Most of us know we shouldn't blow up. Nobody showed us what to do instead. Here are seven steps from Scripture that I teach our church.
Because it keeps you listening instead of loading up your next comeback. You don't have to answer every question the second it's asked, and some don't deserve an answer at all, which is part of why you don't have to fight every battle somebody invites you into. My kids will ask me something and then say, "Dad, are you even listening?" I am. Sometimes I ask God for wisdom first and answer tomorrow. Next disagreement, wait ten or fifteen seconds, then answer calmly. It slows everything down.
Ephesians 4:26-27 admonishes us: "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil." Anger carried into next week grows a root of bitterness and hands the enemy a foothold and possibly a win.
In Matthew 5:23-24 Jesus says, "If you're at the altar and remember your brother has something against you, leave your gift, go be reconciled, then come back." Peace with people comes before praise to God. If the other person refuses, you've done your part, and you can still walk in peace.
I say cornbread ought to have sugar in it. Donna says if it has sugar, it isn't cornbread. Back then a fight could drag on for a month, and it had little to do with cornbread. I was thinking, I'm the man of this house. She was thinking, no man is going to tell me what to do. So, just for fun, How do you like your cornbread? Sugar or No Sugar? (leave the answer below in the comment section)
Thirty six years later, we still disagree about the sugar. We just don't fight about it anymore. Now it's usually over in a few minutes, and half the time we end up laughing.
Your kids are watching how you handle anger. Children learn more from what parents do than from what they say, and that includes how you disagree. When your family knows everything will be okay by sundown, you're teaching self control without a lecture.
You won't get this all right at once. Keep practicing, and every time you choose resolution over one more round, you're being shaped a little more like Christ. The same God who calmed the storm can calm your heart.
You can get Dr. Vorce's free ebook, Presence Driven, at jonathanvorce.com.
Remember..."The Word Will Work, If You Work the Word."
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