Here are some of the quotations and highlights from my message, Sunday, on Overcoming AngerProverbs 15:1-7, 18

A soft answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.

2 The tongue of the wise dispenses knowledge,
but the mouths of fools pour out folly.

3 The eyes of the Lord are in every place,
keeping watch on the evil and the good.

4 A gentle tongue is a tree of life,
but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.

5 A fool despises a parent’s instruction,
but the one who heeds admonition is prudent.

6 In the house of the righteous there is much treasure,
but trouble befalls the income of the wicked.

7 The lips of the wise spread knowledge;
not so the minds of fools.

18 Those who are hot-tempered stir up strife,
but those who are slow to anger calm contention

Dr. Mark Gregston: Why are Teens Angry?

I sometimes wonder if the reason we see so much anger in young
people is that we’re not patiently preparing them for the world into
which they are walking. Anger is an emotional response to not getting
what you want. Young people tell me all the time that they’re angry,
but they don’t know why. However, as I spend time with them and help
them process what they feel and think, I sense that they just aren’t ready
to hit the world running, and their unpreparedness angers them.

http://www.heartlightministries.org/parentingtodaysteens/

Anger Management – Three Keys

1. Check your interpretation of the cause of your pain.

You come up with other possible interpretations and you seek the truth – before you act on your behavior.

Someone fails to return a phone call – so your feelings are hurt, you interpret that they are being inconsiderate and then – what do you do? You come up with other interpretations. It could be that they’re out of town. Or maybe someone else accidentally erased the message. So, you politely call again, assuming the best.

But what if after coming up with other interpretations, you find out that another person was trying to hurt you. They did have malice in their heart?

2. Practice Forgiveness

Eph. 4:31 – The opposite of anger is forgiveness

31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.  32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

We accumulate anger. In a marriage, we may have anger over a recent event, but that memory was piled on top of an offense a week ago, which is piled on top of an offense several weeks ago – going all the way back to the beginning of the relationship.

There’s only one way to deal with anger like that – forgive.

Forgiveness is letting go of my right to get even with someone who hurt me.

Lew Smedes – Forgiveness is:

1) We “surrender the right to get even with the person who wronged us.”

2) “We must reinterpret the person who wronged us in a larger format”

“Avoid creating a “caricature” of the person who wronged us. In the act of forgiving, we get a new picture of a needy, weak, complicated, fallible human being like ourselves.”

3) The third step is a “gradual desire for the welfare of the person who injured us.”

(Lew Smedes quoted in “The Forgiveness Factor,” CT, Jan. 10, 2000, p. 43 http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2000/jan10/1.38.html (subscription required)

See also: Good Question: Keys to Forgiving, by Lewis B. Smedes.

How do you know that you have truly forgiven someone? —Holly Beran, Aurora, Colorado

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/015/42.73.html

3. Live in Humility

Forgiveness is a one-time action. Humility is a way of life.

Forgiveness helps me let go of today’s anger. Humility prepares me to handle tomorrow’s anger.

Humility is: recognizing the rights and needs of others as well as yourself. Other people’s needs are important too.

Humility recognizes that all 55,000 people in Petaluma have a right to be here, and go to my kids’ schools, drive down the roads I do, even if that makes for more traffic.

The people from Asia have the right to be here. The people from Mexico have every right to be here.

Humility means sharing space on earth with others.

Humility is what helps us to walk in the shoes of another.

Humility is important because it gives us a more accurate frame of reference, so that next time we are bothered or hurt, we are more likely to make an accurate interpretation.

On the other hand, when we think we’re more important – we start thinking that everything happens, happens in reference to me. Everybody is watching me.

THE DISCOVERY (from Christianity Today)

In 1990, a young mother of three pleaded for her life after being confronted by an assailant wearing combat fatigues.

“Please don’t shoot me,” she whimpered.

The murderer cold-heartedly fired anyway, killing the woman. The assailant made so many mistakes in covering up her crime that had the situation not been so tragic, it would have been comic. She sloppily disposed of her clothing and weapon. Colorado Springs police had her in custody within 24 hours. Shortly thereafter, they also arrested the victim’s husband after determining that the two had an affair. Sydna Masse was a neighbor of the murdered woman. When she heard about the killing, she responded with hate and rage.

“I had a dead friend and now lived behind three motherless kids. I felt I had every right to hate the murderer who caused this.”

Sydna grew “physically hot” when the murderer’s name-Jennifer-was even mentioned or her picture was flashed on television. “For a while, I couldn’t even read the newspaper articles,” she admits.

Sydna’s hate wasn’t a solitary affair. “The whole city and state hated her,” she says. Jennifer’s life sentence did little to ameliorate Sydna’s passion. ‘There was no relief in her sentencing. That’s the thing with hatred and bitterness–it eats you alive. Every time I passed the house, I missed Diane and became angry all over again.”

Shortly after Jennifer received her sentence, Sydna began going through a Bible study that included a chapter on forgiveness. Sydna prayerfully asked God whom she needed to forgive, and in her words, ‘Jennifer’s name came right .to my head. I literally did a whiplash and protested, ‘No way I can forgive her. She killed my friend! She killed a mother five.”‘

In spite of her reluctance, Sydna finally acquiesced and wrote a carefully worded letter to Jennifer, expressing her forgiveness. She was caught by surprise by what happened inside her. As soon as Sydna dropped the letter into the mail, “a weight lifted, I felt like I was losing 20 pounds. That’s when she learned that anger, bitterness, and refusal to forgive keeps you from experiencing the depths of joy.

This can be found at: http://www.dearshrink.com/theforgivenessfactor.pdf

“That’s the thing with hatred and bitterness. It eats you alive. Anger, bitterness and unforgiveness keep you from experiencing the depths of joy.”

Sydna Masse – friend of a murder victim
Quoted in Christianity Today, January 10, 2000.