FOUR ZERO - Anger Management

01 02 - Midweek Menu _Father, Forgiv

During this session, we dealt with the aspects of anger and forgiveness. 

Throughout the session we discussed how our ways of dealing with anger affect our ability, or inability, to forgive. 

There are three primary reasons we become angry.

 

1. Worth. We can get angry when we feel we are not being respected or valued. A good biblical example is Martha.
2. Needs. We can get angry when we feel our needs are not being met. The challenge we have is discerning the difference between needs and wants.
3. Beliefs. We can get angry when something challenges our beliefs. 

Often, anger develops as a mixture of the three.

In summary, we become angry when we think that our sense of self-worth, our essential needs, and our strong beliefs are being threatened.

When anger grows within us, it tends to be shown in one of three directions:

1. Inward
2. To others
3. To God

This leads to some difficult questions. 

1. Have you derived your sense of worth from the correct place?
2. Are the things you think you need essential or possibly an expression of desires, greed and "rights" rather than need?
3. Are some of the things you believe trivial rather than vital?

Managing your anger may mean readjusting your source of worth, reducing your catalogue of needs and revising some of your beliefs so that the truly important things remain. The longer your list of worths, needs and beliefs, the greater your risk of getting angry and feeling threatened.

So, how do we often handle our anger? One of these will most likely be your primary style of handling anger.

1. Suppression - "When I hold it all inside."
2. Open Aggression - "When everyone sees that I'm angry."
3. Assertiveness - "When I speak the truth in love."
4. Passive Aggression - "When everyone feels that I'm angry."
5. Dropping It - "When I just let it go."

Sometimes the primary style you have is hereditary. Check out the clip below. It's a good example of how anger management is passed down from one generation to the other.

Forgiveness is the key to dealing with anger. Jesus shows us this continually throughout the Gospels. When Jesus said "forgive them" he was speaking of those at the foot of the cross and all involved with the crucifixion, as well as every other human being to ever exist, including us.

Some things to note regarding the "them" we are to forgive:

• They are often the people closest to you.
• They are often your spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend
• Often "them" is you. Forgiving oneself is a major issue.
• "Them" may be those in authority over you.
• "Them" may be your parents, whether or not they're still living or even if you know who they are.

You will often find that those the closest to you are the ones needing forgiveness the most. 

In this process of forgiveness, we find three hurdles that makes it very difficult.

1. They haven't apologized, and may never.
2. They keep doing what hurts me, and probably will continue to.
3. They don't deserve to be forgiven.

When you look at these hurdles in relation to the forgiveness offered by Christ on the cross, it becomes pretty obvious. The people who had crucified him did not apologize, had numerous times killed prophets in the past and would continue this, and did not deserve forgiveness.

Forgiveness is about freedom. The clip below explains this well.