What we’re going to be doing is talking about how we can manage anger. Not that anger is ever a problem in any kind of a relationship, let alone a marriage.
We know some families where, unfortunately, the characterization of the family or the marriage is anger. A lot of baggage then comes from the anger. So certainly we’ve got to make sure that anger is handled in appropriate ways.
People have different attitudes about anger. It’s almost cliche that you’ve got the mad parent, right? It seems like people expect someone in a marriage to always be angry. It’s common in a lot of the television shows we watch. That’s a problem because these are the fictitious tv shows, but that’s pouring over into our collective psyche. It affects some of our expectations of how things should be, but I think God has a lot better for us. We need to be following God and live the way he wants us to live. And that’s certainly not living into anger.
People will try to excuse their anger. They say things like, “Well Jesus got mad, right?” There’s a meme that’s been going around for a while that says, “When people say, ‘What would Jesus do?’ Remind them that flipping over tables and chasing people with a whip is within the realm of possibility.” But that’s so out of context. Jesus had a specific reason for what he did. This idea that I’m just going to be angry and everyone has just gotta put up with my anger is scary, especially in families. With kids, if mom or dad is always mad, it’s just, scary. It’s definitely an environment that would produce a lot of anxiety.
What are some things that would make you angry?
Bryon is an army brat. His dad was in the army 21 years. Timeliness has been a thing his whole life. He experiences anxiety when we’re running late. It makes him angry when we have to take something with us and we can’t find it. The kids will coming up to him saying, “I can’t find my Pokemon card” or, “My case for my glasses.” Whatever it is, if things were just put away where they belong, then we would not be searching all over the house. But in fairness in fairness he gets just as mad at himself. Jen thinks he actually gets madder at himself. Bryon gets on the warpath, pulling cushions off the couch. Trying to find the stupid little thing. That’s probably when Bryon gets the angriest. Anger is always that secondary emotion. In this case it starts off when Bryon gets anxious about being late. Then the anxiety leads to the anger.
To be honest though, Bryon’s emotion gets the better of him sometimes and he needs to control it, but anger is not always bad. It is a natural emotion. Everybody is going to experience some anger. It’s triggered by some anxiety or some fear. Anger is a response. It often manifests to help protect from that initial emotion. The anger in and of itself. But if it’s mishandled, that’s when the anger is going to be a bad thing.
Even God, when we look at scripture, God got angry. Look at the prophets. He got really angry at Israel for their idolatry. He called their idolatry adultery. At one point God even divorced Israel (Jer 3:8). God divorced Israel because he was so mad at them because they were doing the wrong thing. They were committing adultery.
It’s okay to feel angry. Going back to the illustration of the beginning. Jesus chased people out of the temple because the money changers and all those people in the temple, they were keeping people from God. They were trying to force people away from God and preventing them from experiencing the fullness God. And Jesus got angry about it.
Yet, if anybody can do the angry scorched the earth, it is literally God. But, that’s not who he is. that’s not in his character It’s not that he can’t act and punish for these sins as he has certainly done. Think of the story of Noah. At the same time, however, he’s always here. He always loves us. He always provides that redemption and that’s particularly the case by sending Jesus to us. That’s important to bring out because also when you look at the prophets, you see God’s sadness and feelings of betrayal. But also, you see, his love. You see him wanting to reach out and bring people back.
Let’s talk about managing our anger though, because we think there’s a passage in Ephesians that really is important for this. It’s something that people don’t always understand completely. “Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on the cause of your anger. Do not give the devil an opportunity (Eph 4:26-27). Some translations don’t say the cause of your anger just says don’t let the sun go down on your anger. That’s an interesting passage because it presumes you will get angry. We all do. This passage, however, is not only talking about managing anger in marriage. If you took this literally, you can’t go to bed, you can’t go to sleep until you resolve this issue because you’re giving a devil’s foothold. Well, if that’s true, that would mean any time you were angry with anyone over anything, you can’t go to sleep until you resolve the issue.
This statement is proverbial. Paul wasn’t giving a command from God. He’s talking about good principles and good ideas. Don’t let your anger keep going. And we’ve seen this, right? When people don’t resolve their anger, it gets worse and worse. It builds and it festers. This passage is saying don’t marinate in your anger. You don’t want your anger to just get soaked up into you.
That point about not giving the devil a foothold is important also. You really do give the anger power over you when you let it fester. When you just marinated it. As you were saying, you give that anger power and control over you and the devil will take advantage of that and tempt you. When our kids were little, we were teaching them not to have temper tantrums, teaching them how to deal with their emotions. Toddlers start feeling things and they just don’t know what they’re feeling or how to deal with it. We would always tell them when they were getting angry, you’ve got to control your emotions, don’t let your emotions control you.
We never want to say it’s not okay to feel emotions because that’s repression, that’s something that’s unhealthy and wrong. Your emotions aren’t in and of themselves bad. They’re a response that you’re having to a situation. We can’t, however, let those emotions control us.
It’s wise to separate; I am so angry at this entire person versus I’m angry or I’m frustrated about a situation. We always talk about the idea of team marriage. We’re on the same team. We win or we lose together. There’s no winner or loser between the two of us because if one is saying I’m the winner, the other one’s a loser, guess what? You both lost.
Even with that we like this language better. I’m feeling angry rather than I am angry. When you say I am angry now, you’re using language of identity, but you’re not anger. We are not our anger. We feel our anger. Anger is something that is part of us, but just as much as our finger is part of us but our finger is not who we are. It’s an aspect of us. If we should lose our anger, we don’t become less ourselves. Sometimes people who fester in their anger become so identified with their anger that they can’t separate what they’re feeling from who they are.
Anger is a feeling felt for very specific reasons. Anger should not be part of our character. That’s something that you certainly don’t want. You don’t want to be characterized by anger. You don’t want anger to be a part of your character.
Sometimes when dealing with anger, the best choice is to take a break and come back to the issue later. But you need to make sure you’re being proactive about that, especially in a marriage. Absolutely. A big part of that is because of the physiology of anger. It’s pretty consistent for most people. It all starts in our limbic system. It’s all a chemical response in our brain to a stimulus. Anger is often because your fight or flight reaction is being triggered. Your body is being flooded with the chemicals that prepare you for action. Your capillaries swell your blood starts pumping. Bryon can feel it when he’s really angry. He can feel his heart start racing. He can feel himself getting angry and a couple of things happen. He grits his teeth. He doubles up his fists. His body is responding to the stimulus getting ready to fight.
The idea is that you’re separating yourself from the conflict for a time. It’s not like you’re throwing up your hands and walking out on or walking away from your spouse. The relationship is important.
You also want to look at yourself and see how you are contributing to this conflict. Dealing with anger requires a lot of introspection. It requires a lot of prayer. You need to discover why you are angry and what part you are playing in the conflict. The answer to that is huge. That’s part of growing in holiness.
So we really need to make sure that our anger is controlled. It needs to be dealt with quickly. Not necessarily in the moment because sometimes you need to unplug and deal with the physiology of it.