Anger is an emotion. It’s an emotional, automatic reaction to something or someone that offended you physically or psychologically. When it motivates you to find a solution to the problem, it can be positive, but in most cases, it is negative.

Anger is activated when people feel good, are rejected or threatened, or even experience a loss. It causes pain that’s definitely unpleasant.

It not only damages your health, but also negatively affects the people in the immediate vicinity of the explosion. Anger manifests in different ways and is in most cases experienced very negatively by all the parties.

^19-20… let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage.

This may be easier said than done. You see, most of the time the anger is a secondary reaction. In other words, before we got angry, we feel something had happened that harmed us. We got hurt. Someone stuck a knife into us and the pain that followed automatically on that, was automatically followed by a rush of anger.

But just because it’s an automatic reaction does not mean that it is right. We can’t just let the reaction take hold of us and say that we can’t control it.

We do have control over the way in which we will deal with the anger. Yes, it can be positive as well. It can motivate us to find a solution to the situation. We can use the energy to work on our relationships with others. It can motivate us the expose the negative and build up positive energy.

Although these are lovely words, it’s definitely not that easy, something I can say out of my own experience. In the heat of the battle, you don’t have the energy to turn that negative into a positive.

Again, we need reinforcements. On our won, we cannot withstand that huge wave of emotions. That’s why you have to ask the Holy Spirit for help to deal with the emotions in the right way when they show up.

Yes, you can work on your anger. You have the ability to prevent it from getting out of hand. Each of us has to identify this flaw consciously. We must acknowledge it, because then we can work on it.

Be creative and first take a time out when you feel how the emotions wake up and rise to the surface. When the emotions have cooled down a bit, you can look at what had happened and find a win-win solution is probably possible for everyone.

May the Spirit help us with this!

Scripture
James 1:19-21

Reflection
What makes you really angry?
How do you react?
How can and should you deal differently with your anger?

Prayer
Father, sometimes I can’t keep it in and then I explode. I know I don’t always deal with in the right way. I don’t actually know how to deal with it when I get angry. I seriously need help. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.