We all get mad from time to time. And anger certainly has its benefits. But often we get so focused on managing our anger and minimizing our blow-ups that we don’t take the time to consider what’s beneath it all. We get angry for a reason and it’s good to discover what’s beneath the water line.
Anger is the emotion that lets us know we’ve experienced an injustice.
And many times we’re simply upset because life is not going as we want it to. We can acknowledge the immaturity of our tantrums and do our best to get over them as quickly as we can.
And perhaps this is the best course of action more often than not.
But when outbursts of anger keep showing up in our life it’s often helpful to consider what’s behind them.
For instance, on the surface, we might understand our wife is not intentionally trying to disrespect us. And we can practice letting go of that particular incident that got under our skin.
But the deeper work is to discover our relationship with the idea of respect.
God has given us each a dignity that is rightly to be honored. And it is an injustice whenever this dignity is denied or otherwise diminished.
While our wife was not intentionally being disrespectful, anger was still alerting us to the importance of protecting our dignity.
But now this becomes a personal issue for us to sort through and not a relational one. We must rediscover the dignity God has given us – a dignity that’s not diminished based on the opinions of others.
And the more we can live in the truth of this the less likely anger will get the best of us. There’s no need to get angry and defend ourselves when the truth of who God has created us to be is unshakeable.
But we must first discover what’s beneath our anger to realize the importance of holding on to this bedrock truth.
In the end, don’t be so quick to dismiss anger that you miss the deeper desires of your heart. Those surface incidents that are rightly dismissed are often still clues to the weightier matters of our soul.
Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash
