Posted on August 20, 2010 by newhope2010

Ever met someone who seemed to have an endless well of anger?  Deep, abiding, enduring, anger which never seems to go away?

I’m sure we all have.  And like any other addiction, nothing can be done until that person accepts that they have a problem and is willing to do something about it.

Yes, it can be an addiction.  It is just like any other “quick-fix” or defence mechanism.  We turn to it to escape hurt or abuse or trauma, but if we keep turning to it, the anger itself can become an addiction.  And like other addictions – alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography or internet relationships, etc – anger takes control of our lives and begins to destroy the very things which are most important to us.

Some therapists try to “treat” the anger by itself, and all sorts of books have been written about “dealing with anger”, but unless we go back to the source of the pain and the hurt behind the anger all we are doing is trying to put a bandaid on a boil or a cancer.  It will not go away with bandaid psychology or shallow counselling no matter how esteemed the counsellor might be held in the eyes of the church or of the “client”.

God’s Word says when we are angry we are never to let it continue over into the next day (Ephesians 4:26).  God created our emotions, including anger, jealousy, envy, hurt, and so on, but He calls us to master our own minds — to bring our emotions into subjection to His purpose for our lives.

Romans 12:2 teaches us that we ought not to be like the world, “but be transformed by the renewing of (our) mind(s)”, so that we can prove or establish “what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God”.    The next verse urges us to set our minds “to be right-minded” (MKJV).

As Christians we are a called-out people, “a peculiar people” (Titus 2:14, 1 Peter 2:9).  We cannot continue to think and behave like people who do not know God.

We are each individually responsible for the state of our mind, the conduct of our emotions, our reactions to events in our lives.  When we realise things are horribly wrong, we need to get help to overcome whatever it is that is troubling us.

Do we want to find solutions?  Or just keep rolling around in our sin and despair?

© Bevan Collingwood 2010