Turning Anger from a Foe to a Friend

I was an adventuresome eight or nine-year-old. It’s probably hard to believe but I was a very high risk, loony kid that was in the emergency room regularly. And so, we were visiting my grandmother, and she lived out in the country in West Virginia, and had this huge hill right behind her house and there was a little barn, and of course, when I got there, I was about nine, maybe ten, I can’t remember exactly, but she said “Someone’s keeping a horse in the big field that goes straight up. Don’t go near the horse. The horse is wild. It hasn’t been ridden in years. It’s a huge horse. You could really get hurt. Chip, do you hear me? Don’t go near the horse.”

And I’m thinking, “I got that one down. Absolutely.” You know? I knew exactly what I was going to do. So, I got my sisters to help me and we found some stuff and we fed the horse, and we got him closer and closer and I saw there was a saddle. I’m ten years old. Me and my sister, “Here, you feed him here,” and we got him so we put the saddle on it, I’m not sure how to do it. I start pulling stuff, you know – you watch those Westerns, you can figure this out.

So, it’s a little loose but this ought to work and we had a rope, I didn’t know how to do the bit through the mouth and all that so we just put a rope around his neck and I say, “Hey, now Punky,” that’s my sister’s name, “now you, you keep feeding him, and I’m going to get on him.”

In the back of my mind, my grandma, “Don’t you touch that horse!” So, I get on this horse, and I know you’re not supposed to hold on to the horn but when dear life begins to – this horse bolts up, I mean it’s like a forty five degree and there’s rocks and he runs as fast and I’ve got to tell you, I was having a blast. I mean, it was like, “Whoa, do do do do. Bum di de bum di de bum bum.

And he gets all the way up to the top and then he stops, and then he turns around. And I’m going, “Ohhhh.” He goes straight down and I mean now I’m just hanging on like this, like this, like this. And I’m realizing we’re going toward this fence. And I’m thinking, “I’m going to die.” And so, I thought, We’re going so fast if I bail out it’s going to hurt, if I hit the fence it’s going to hurt more.

And so I just jumped off the side of the horse and hit a rock and rolled a little bit and then he was angry and ran and tried to nip me in the rear end. And I got out of there.

And you’re thinking, What does this have to do with anger? Many years later, after learning that a horse can be really wild and dangerous, I have a friend who trained horses and I went to this little camp. And I got on this horse and he described the horse, he says, “If you want it do this, say that.” I said, “What do you mean? You mean, you just say it?” “Yeah.” He said, “If you want it to do this, with your knee, you go like that. He’ll do this. With your other knee if you tap here he’ll do this. Just make this sound and he’ll back up.” I said, “Aw, get out.” It was like driving a car. I mean it was an amazing deal!

Now, here’s the deal. They’re both big, strong animals. One was a wild stallion out of control. The other, with a bit put in its mouth, became a source of great joy, good transportation, and a lot of fun. That’s the picture I want you to have about anger. Out of control, I’ll tell you what, it’s like a fire outside of the fireplace. Under control, focused, understood and used, it’s like a fire in the fireplace that brings light and warmth.

And so, what we’re going to talk in this session about is well, how do you do that? How do you make anger work for you? And I just touched on it. I want to go through the A-B-C-Ds of anger. And as we do that I’m going to ask you to pull back in your memory my “a-ha” moment. I actually learned this sometimes God does something and you have this “a-ha” moment and what I’ve learned to do is say, “God, how did you do that?”

Okay, I was studying all this stuff, I came home, I was lonely, hurt, struggling. I got mad, I didn’t even know I was mad. I went to bed. I got up and yelled at my kids and was a jerk as a husband. Okay? Then I sat in my car, I sat there for ten minutes, and I realized, “I’m angry,” because I’m studying this right now.

And then, once I acknowledged my anger I backtracked to the primary emotion and I realized, Anger’s not the problem. I’m sad, I’m lonely, and I’m disappointed. And then number three, what do I do? I considered the cause. I had hurt and expectations. I expected everyone, very unrealistically, at nine thirty, to be waiting on the edge going, “Daddy’s home. Life’s wonderful.” But I didn’t think this all through.

And then finally, the last thing I did is I determined how to best deal with it. And my moment of truth was: do I sit in this car, stuff it, leak it later, like at dinner. “Hey honey, well, what was happening last night? So did you give a sleeping pill to all the kids? Ha ha ha ha.” You know? “Did you have a good day? I did.” And that’s what I would do.

Or do I walk in there, feel very vulnerable, very naked, and say to my wife, “I feel hurt and lonely and disappointed because I needed you and you’re my best friend and you weren’t available. And I understand why. And I understand my expectations were totally unreasonable. But I need to be around you.”

By the way, I never finished that story. I can tell you right where I was in the kitchen. My wife put her arms around me, and she said, “Hon, I understand. And you know when you get home tonight, let’s take a walk, grab a cup of coffee, and I just want to hear what’s going on.”

And I got this great hug. And I had a little decision that turned an entire day – instead of stuffing anger, getting mad, leaking later, and probably not having a good day being mad at other people. And instead, I acknowledged my anger, A; I backtracked to the primary emotion, B; I considered the cause, C, my expectations; D, I determined a course of action, and in this particular one, although I wish I could say I do it all the time, I did the right thing, and I experienced God’s grace.

I went from a wild stallion out of control, “Make your bed! Have you had your quiet time? Take out the trash!” to a father who’s forgiven, filled with the Spirit, reconnected with my wife and with my kids.

My anger taught me something. It helped me grow. It also helped me realize the extent of need that I have and it told my wife something, a lot of women, especially married to people that are kind of, have a lot of energy, and it let my wife know: I really need you. I need you a lot. And so it actually communicated love to her.

And so, I’m going to encourage you, that when you get angry, and by the way this will be very hard for stuffers, you may need people to tell you you’re angry, because you’ve been so trained in stuffing it. You actually need to give them permission, that when you start behaving in certain ways, they can say, “I think you’re angry.”

But, this can be a tremendous process and now what I want to do in the real practical is the who, what, how, and when of determining how to deal with your anger. Okay?

So, what – what do you do? So, here are the questions you want to ask, “At who am I really angry? Myself, someone else, the situation, or God?” Now this may sound simple, but I expressed my anger. I thought I was angry at my son for not having his chores done or my daughter for not making her bed or my wife because she had the audacity to say I’m being unreasonable with the kids. That’s not who I was angry at. And until you get clear on who you’re angry at, you can’t deal with it rightly and you can’t heal.

My friend, Dr. Becca Johnson, in her counseling tells the story of the young woman who was date raped. She had been in counseling for a long time and was not making progress. And she said, “We had a breakthrough in one of the sessions, and this young woman discovered that her anger’s focus was really not so much on the perpetrator, but she was mad at herself. And she was taking on the guilt, which is not uncommon with rape victims. It was, “Why did I ever go out with that guy? I saw a little red flag.” Obviously, nothing. And so, she was blaming herself, mad at herself, and it wasn’t until she realized, “You know what? I’m angry with me.” That then she can say, “Now wait a second. Are you responsible when people hold you down and do unmentionable things?” No.

See, until you understand who you’re angry at, you have a hard time dealing with: what are the real issues? We believe a lot of lies. By the way, we do a series on spiritual warfare. If you think this isn’t an arena where the enemy is…he’s a liar, he’s a condemner, he’s an accuser. In fact, the key passage is what? “Be angry yet don’t sin. Don’t let the sun go down on the anger.” And why? “Lest you give the devil a foothold.”

So, a lot of these, when you have unresolved anger, there’s all kind of Christians that never think there’s demonic, satanic, powerful forces. He doesn’t need to have things move in your house or scare you to death if he has you believing a lie about condemnation and ruining your present relationships. I mean, why should he show you himself when he has you buffaloed now? And by the way, some of you are starting to deal with anger issues, and starting to talk about things, and it gets really hard and really difficult and really threatening. I’ve got news for you. There is huge spiritual opposition about you doing and obeying and listening what we’re talking about.

It’s a stronghold. So the first thing you need to find out is who are you angry at? I have a very, very close friend. Godly young woman, known for years, and about every six months to thirteen months she has a complete meltdown. She’s been single, she’s now in her late forties, and attractive, bright, all the things you would ever think. And I mean, gets depressed, just, it took about five years to realize, and for her to admit, she’s mad at God.

She’s really mad at God. “Why haven’t your brought someone into my life?” And she has some really warped views of God, and so, she thinks God is punishing her, and she has a lot of things.

But until she came to the point where she realized she wasn’t mad at these guys who asked you out once, these guys that want you to get sort of serious, back away, she wasn’t mad that Christian guys seemed to be… she had her anger in all kind of different areas, she finally realized, “I’m mad at God.”

And by the way, at least from the book of Job and from the psalms, God doesn’t seem to be too upset when people are honest and candid and angry with Him in order to get to the heart of issues. He can handle it. “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, He’s near to those who are crushed in spirit. He’s near to those who come to Him in Truth.” Isaiah quoting God says, “Call to Me, present your cause, that you might be proved right.” God longs more than anything else for us to be honest and come to Him with the raw pain and the hurt that we have.

So number one, as you go through this you acknowledge your anger, you’re backtracking, and then you want to say, “Well who am I mad at?” Second, what should I do? Right? Now, I’ve discovered who I’m mad at. Well, it’s my spouse, it’s one of my kids, it’s me, it’s God.

Well, what should I do?” Express it directly or release it indirectly. Do I confront the situation or do I conceal it? Will my plans make matters worse or make them better?” And this is where I’m going to ask my friend Dr. Becca Johnson, she says it in two paragraphs. Because this is critical. What do you do when you realize, A) you’re angry, and B) you’re angry at someone. Do you directly go at it and deal with it and when do you not?

She writes, “When we find ourselves in an unwanted situation with angry feelings we basically have two choices. Do I express my feelings directly to the person or do I release them indirectly through various activities? Dealing with it directly means choosing to confront the situation. We try and change it. We act rather than acquiesce. We take action and appropriately let the person involved know about our anger and its root emotions, what contributed to their existence and what we would like to be different.

“It’s best to express ourselves clearly without blaming or attacking. We let our anger be known but in ways we’ve previously discussed. ‘I feel blank when you blank.’ ‘I wish you would versus demand.’ We get it out wisely and carefully, never impulsively or without consideration of the consequences and the causalities.

“Dealing with our anger indirectly gives us more options. Sometimes it’s best to accept things the way they are. Conform. And not to share our anger with those involved. Conceal. But it’s important to make sure our motivation isn’t from an uncomfortable situation. We choose this option not by default or out of hopelessness but out of a calculated conclusion that it would be best not to stir the waters or rock the boat at this particular time, in this particular situation.

“Wisdom sometimes demands that we choose not to provoke or reprove someone when past history or other circumstances dictate it to be an unwise practice. Sometimes we have to find a new job. Do business with a different company. Discontinue an unhealthy relationship. We choose not to confront but to quit. We should consider this only after we’ve weighed all other options carefully and determine that letting go is the best course of action.” Does that make sense?
See there’s times where you work for a boss and he’s making sexual advances. You say, “I feel uncomfortable when you make jokes like that” and they continue to make sexual advances. And you understand that your role in the company is of the kind that there may be a time there’s someone you’re to report this to, and you need to directly say, “This is the way it is” and understand the consequences.

There are other times where maybe it’s a different situation and you realize no matter what you do you’re powerless. Your role in the company, your role in the relationship, you’ve said it seventy-eight times, it’s the seventy-ninth, nothing is changed, you’re trying reprove a mocker and you realize, “You know something? All it will do is inflame the problem, I’ve prayed about it, I’m willing, I’m not uncomfortable, I would do it.” And you pray and God says, “You know something? This is not one, don’t go down this road again.”

How many times do you need to knock your head against that wall for that bump on your head to get bigger and bigger and more painful and realize on this one, you know what? There was a time – what did Jesus say to some of the disciples? “Get the dust off your feet, move onto the next town.”

You don’t always have the ability and sometimes it’s not God’s will to resolve everything with everyone. You do the best you can as far as it depends on you and that’s why we have a Holy Spirit. He will show you if you’re willing and open, what to do in various situations.

The third issue is not only the who or the what, but the how. How do I deal with the situation? Should I do it in person? Should I do it on the phone? Should I do it through a letter?

How do you know what to do? I would say the best way if at all possible is in person. It’s the hardest way, but that’s the best way because, one, you can read the body language and the goal is you speak the truth in love. I feel hurt, I feel disappointed, I felt used when, and really, you get to express your anger to a person when your motive is, “I love them and I want to restore the relationship.” Not, “This will make me feel better because I’m getting vengeance.” The goal of most anger is vengeance.

And so, you need to forgive the person, right? “I’m going to release you,” that’s what forgiveness is all about. “I’m going to be merciful to you the way God has been merciful to me but I’m not going to be a doormat. So, I’m going to tell you I feel this way when you do this, but I’m doing it not because I can guarantee the result, it’s because I love you and you need to know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And I’m not going to sit on this and bury this and stuff this and pretend that things are okay and have an inauthentic relationship.”
And so in person is usually the best way. But, sometimes because of how the person might respond, you might say, “Well gosh, I did that once and that’s when they rewired my jaw, right?” Or, “I did that once and it was...” And so maybe a letter’s the best way to go.

To a person that, whether they’re dead, or whether it would be totally inappropriate and you know the response, to write a very specific letter. “I feel _____when you____ and because you_____.” And you write it out and you list it out and you get it out here.

I remember a time where, a long story, I won’t go into it, but I was, a guy called me under the premise of something and was trying to trap me and recorded the conversation, trying to make me say something bad about someone else and then never played it, but told people I’d said things. And I was pretty young, I was like thirty-eight, and I was livid. I mean, I found out about it and I was livid.

I had anger fantasies. Pretending terrible things happened to him and saying, “Thus says the Lord.” And I was eaten up and I couldn’t sleep and I was angry. And I remember eating lunch with a fellow pastor, a really godly guy and he said, “You know what, Chip, you need to do, you need to write that guy a letter. You need to get it all out. You need to get really straight.” And man, it was a brother that really loves me and so I did. I wrote it all out, wrote it all out, wrote it out and he said, “Let me read that thing”, and I let him.

He read it out, he goes, “Wow, so the motivation for this letter was?” “Well, man, this guy did this terrible stuff and he needs to know!” “So the motivation is justice, right? And then I noticed that there’s some little innuendo here, except it’s not very innuendo, it’s like you’re really slamming this guy.” “That’s true.” “Well, okay. It’s true, but, so you really want to pay him back?” “I don’t know if I’d call it that. That sounds too much like vengeance and that sounds like something only God should do.” Anyway I wrote that letter and he said, “Why don’t you try rewriting it again when you feel like the goal of the letter would be to restore his relationship to God and his relationship to you.”

It took me three or four days before I could get to where I was willing to do that. I eventually did it. I wrote out a letter. And then he challenged me, he said, “You know what I encourage you to do? Why don’t you take that letter, put it in an envelope, and put it in your briefcase. And why don’t you sit on it for thirty days?” And I did.

And all the venom, all the junk, all the injustice, then God began to speak to me, and then, in that particular case, that letter became just a little monument of, “God, I’m going to trust my reputation to you.” At the end of it, the core of my anger was not what he did. The core of my anger was I was zealous for my reputation. I was zealous for what people might think. And for me it was a step of faith to say, “I’m going to entrust that to you, Lord.” And I watched after years later, God took care of all of that. I never sent the letter.

There’s a time to send a letter. There’s a time not to send the letter. For some of you, you write a letter and you have a good friend look at it and help you process but there’s some people in this room, I guarantee, that have ten, twenty, thirty, forty years of pain and resentment that’s buried toward parents, or people, or someone who walked out on you, that is unresolved and it’s been a poison in your soul and you need to sit down, maybe this afternoon, and write a two or three page letter of what they did, how you actually felt, how angry you really felt, the negative impact and consequences it’s had on your life.

And you get down to the end and then by the grace of God, when you can say it and mean it, “And I forgive you.” And you may never need to send the letter. And make sure someone reads it a couple times before you ever send anything.
We need to figure out the who, the what, the how, and then finally, the when. When should I deal with the situation? Should I do it now? Right now? I mean, let’s get this taken care of right now. Should I do it later? Or, like, in the case of that letter, should I do it never?

At the bottom we have a continuum of ways to express anger. And you can just see. I just wanted to give you this to get – unhealthy way, get it all out. Healthy, you express it.

The healthy way: you redirect or release. Unhealthy: you grin and bear it, basically stuff. Unhealthy way: you explode, versus healthy: you communicate. Discharge – that’s, sometimes there’s just little hurts; I mean it’s not worth having some big thing over someone who said something that you know that they didn’t really mean anything by it. And there are three or four of those things and you don’t want to make a big deal and you realize God doesn’t want you to confront people over every little thing but you’ve got four or five of them?

You know what I do? I get on the elliptical for forty-five minutes. And you just blow it out, you thank God and you know they’re fallen and I’m fallen it’s not that big a deal, I know their heart, I know their character.

Every time something happens you don’t have to get it all, you know, we wouldn’t have anything else to do the whole rest of the day, would we? And so, there are times where if it bugs you, it sticks with you, it’s not resolved, you’ve prayed about it, you’ve realized God says, “Look, confront this,” either in person, when to do it, how to do it. And there’s just a lot of stuff that loves covers a multitude of…. Okay?

And so, you just love them, you forgive them, but your emotions are all jazzed up. So take a walk, listen to some music, do something positive, get a work out. You know, take a bag and bite it. Ahhhh! I don’t know. I’ve seen them do that stuff on TV, I don’t know if it works, but, some different activity.

As you think about turning anger from that wild stallion out of control to that horse that will do what you say, I’ve given you a methodical process and and I’m going to say that most all of you, what I have placed here in front of you now is a summary of how you can discover your tendencies and walk through the process of the who, the what, the how, and the when. And the questions are for you to discover: do you tend to gravitate towards confrontation or not confronting when you’re angry? Do you tend to run from confrontation when you shouldn’t or do you tend to confront when you shouldn’t?

Question. Have you ever written an anger letter? Did you send it? Why or why not? Are you glad you did or didn’t? And then there’s a list of questions here. They’re very diagnostic. These are just kind of for you personally, where you answer the following questions about the “when.”

And you can go through those and you can just see, yes, no, sometimes. Do I tend to run from conflict? Do I tend to do this, do I tend to do that? And what you’ll get there is a process where all I’m wanting to do is help you get a little picture of: this is how I tend to deal with this issue. Because most of us have never thought about it.

And, by the way, it’s not, please, some of you, especially little obsessive compulsive down on you, live with a lot of condemnation, a la, stuffers – don’t go through here going, “Oh gosh, I’m terrible, yes, I do that.”

There’s not a right or wrong. It’s like, “Do you have blue eyes or brown?” “Oh, I got blue eyes, I’m sorry.” It’s okay! This is how you are and this is where you’re at today and the God who loves you, died for you, raised from the dead, placed His Spirit in you, and has a home waiting for you, brought you to a place to say, “Hey, guess what. I love you and I would like you to turn this nemesis called anger into a friend.”

And so, the only way you can move forward, you’ve got to say, “Where am I now? This is how I tend to respond. Good, bad, ugly, and different. Well, you’re a person. Now I know how to respond in the future.” Does that make sense?

Now, it’s one thing for us to come together and say, “Okay, anger is a neutral emotion. It’s given by God as a gift for self-protection. It produces many positive things but it’s very dangerous. It’s a wild stallion. It can be a great servant to us or total destruction in our lives and relationships.”

But what’s the Scripture have to say about it? What does God – “God, help us, give us clear instruction from Your Word about: how do I manage my anger,” or I would say even, how do I tame my temper? Because it is a big issue.

A little research before we jump in. The average man loses his temper approximately six times a week. The average woman loses her temper about three times a week. Men tend to get angry at things not working, circumstances. Women tend to get angry more about relationships. Single people tend to get angry almost twice as often as those that are married. Men are more likely to be physical in their anger. And all of us, listen to this, are twice as likely to express our anger at home, more than at work or school. That is a wild stallion that needs to be dealt with. Lord, help us.

And so, speaking to a group of people under very intense pressure, many of them had lost their homes. Many had been disowned. Many married someone and now their mate doesn’t believe in the Messiah, they’ve just come to Christ, and so their mate has abandoned them or divorced them, and their life is falling apart, and James would say, “Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials.”

And then later he would say to them, “If you lack wisdom ask God, He’ll show you what to do.” And then he talks in that early chapter about how to get perspective on difficult circumstances. And he promises them blessedness if they can endure through very, very difficult times. But he knows there’s a temptation when under pressure, to take a shortcut, to get really angry at yourself, at other people, at circumstances, and at God.

And so, we pick up the story in James chapter 1 and in James chapter 1 verse 19, the half-brother of our Lord says, “My dear brothers,” notice the kindness and the warmth, “take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. Now notice the purpose clause or the why, “For man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” What a statement.

My anger at my mate, my manipulation out of my anger, my blowing up, my stuffing, my expressing, my wild stallion, out of control, does not produce the righteous life that God requires. It doesn’t fulfill the righteous, it doesn’t make relationships right, things don’t get better when I use anger out of control. And so he says, “Guys, one, two, three” – there is a three-step process given by God to begin to tame the wild stallion of your anger and mine.

Step one is be quick to hear. The word “quick to hear” literally is, the word hear means an eagerness to listen. It doesn’t mean you just hear a word, it means openness, readiness, availability and desire to learn and to hear God’s truth, God’s word. And this word “to hear,” A.T. Robertson and his grammar says, “This word ‘to listen or to hear’ is not simply attentive, assertive, clear listening, but it’s listening for a truth from God in the situation in order to apply it.”

So he says we all ought to be quick to hear. Our immediate response, the first thing in God’s anger management plan, to God, others, our circumstances and our anger, is to be receptive listeners, not reactionary responders.

Most of us, our anger, bam, it just comes out. He says, “No, no, no, no, no, no.” Step one, develop an attitude of reception instead of reaction. This is really important for fellow spewers. It’s so easy to be blunt, critical.

And by the way, I think there are Christian and non-Christian spewers. Non-Christian spewers vomit their anger. Christian spewers, because that’s not very socially acceptable, we just say blunt, harsh, uncaring, negative, critical words that dismiss people’s feelings or dismiss their value and often, quote a verse afterwards to justify how we have just not treated them well.

So don’t always think of spewing as, “Well gosh, I don’t scream and yell at people.” I mean, when I was walking out of my house, I didn’t scream at my kids. If someone said, “You yelled at your kids,” I didn’t. Is this yelling? “Annie, make your bed right now.” But listen to the tone of voice. It was a hundred percent spew. “Ryan, have you done your chores?” What, it was anger.

I need to learn to be receptive instead of react.

As you feel the anger gauge going up, stop and listen and here’s the key question to ask: What is this anger telling me? Why am I angry? What’s going on inside? If you don’t get anything out of this entire time together, if you could remember that anger is a secondary emotion and it’s not the problem, it’ll change your life. If you can just keep the image.

Every time I start to get angry, and by the way, I’ve learned to use the other words that help me, because you say to someone, “Are you angry?” “Oh no, I’m irritated. I’m frustrated.” You can call it whatever you want, you’re angry. Okay? When I feel that coming on, when I feel short, when I want to correct something, want to get it, get it now, and I can just feel this coming on….wait a second, that’s not the problem.

The red light on the dashboard of my car, they tell me something wrong under the hood. The red light of anger is just God’s gift to me to say, “Chip, there’s something going on.” And by the way, sometimes, it’s a good thing. It’s injustice. It’s wrong. You ought to be angry. You ought to do something about it. So the red light doesn’t mean something’s always bad but it tells you there’s something beneath the issue. So the key question is, what is under the hood?

Step two: we’re to be quick to hear. We need to be slow to speak. Slow to speak literally, it’s slow to begin speaking.

It’s not speaking slowly; it’s a warning against rash, hasty, unrestrained words that wound others’ lives. This is our interim response. Our initial response is just, don’t react, listen. What’s going on? Our interim response to God, others, circumstances, and our anger is to think before we speak and this takes practice and discipline.

But listen to why it’s so important from the wisest man who has ever lived, who will ever live. He says, “When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.” If you can just keep your mouth shut. Sometimes.

Someone said, “When we use sharp words, we usually cut our own throat,” and I think they’re right. Proverbs 13:3 goes on to say, “He who guards his lips guards his life. But he who speaks rashly will come to ruin.”

And you know what? People will forgive you, but they don’t always forget. Right? Some of you, if we passed a microphone,“My second grade teacher told me I was dumb.” “I had a coach that told me, ‘You’ll never make it.’” “My dad always said to me, ‘You’re lazy. You’re lazy. You’re lazy.’” Have you forgiven them – of some of those people who said things to you? Absolutely. You have not forgotten. And it marked you.

So, we’ve got to be very, very careful about what comes out of our mouth. Proverbs 29:20, “Do you see a man who speaks in haste?” Quickly, reactionary. “There’s more hope for a fool than him.”

Restrain your tongue. Buy some time. Get your mind in gear before your tongue gets engaged. How? You know, part of it is, remember the consequences. And the other is, just get practical. You know you. And so sometimes when you feel anger, just walk away. Just walk away. I don’t mean walk away, you know what? “Will you excuse me right now? I need to do a little thinking.” Or take a walk.

Thomas Jefferson, I mean literally, he would count to ten. He could feel the anger boiling up. He knows he’s about to say something, “One, two, three, four,” just to stop himself to think long enough.

There’s life and death in the power of the tongue. Is life about to come out? Or is death about to come out? And we’re a people of habit. You have learned, some of you to just blurt out things. If it’s in your mind, you think it ought to come out your mouth. And God would say that’s probably not a really good equation.

And you’re looking at a person who has had to work very, very, very hard on that because I’m a verbal processor. Well, that’s kind of when I think out loud. But if I think something, I’ve just had it come out of my mouth, and you say, “Well, how to you ever break that?”

Part of my journey has been, I made a commitment that when I said something to someone or about someone that I knew wasn’t the right thing, no matter how small, I made a commitment before God that I would go to them and apologize and make it right whether they were in the room or not.

And I’m in a lot of meetings, and I’m with different people, and sometimes leaders, and sometimes, look, you’ve got to be really high-D, we’ve got to cut to the chase, what’s the bottom line? We’ve got this person in this situation, and he’s a great guy, doesn’t have the capacity, the organization has grown to here, we need to get to here instead of to get to there. Great guy, loving, kind, he’s the kind of guy you’d want to marry your sister, but he can’t handle this job. We’ve got to find somebody else.
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It can start sounding very much like the mission is all that counts and people don’t. And then people make a few little comments and you move on. And then, God is just, Don’t ever treat people that way, Chip.

And I’ve had to go to people and say, “Excuse me, brother, you’ve been here for a while and I’m kind of the new guy and things have been going downhill for a while and we’ve been reevaluating and I was in a meeting and these words came out of my mouth in reference to you as though all your contribution wasn’t valued. And I just want to tell you, I blew it and I sinned, I asked God to forgive me, will you forgive me?” I’ll tell you what, you only do a half a dozen of those.

And so, I would encourage you, whatever mechanism you need, the key question you ask then is: what must I do to prevent a verbal reflex response? And I don’t know what it is for you. Do you count to ten? Practice whatever you need to do.

A simple way, you might put a little star or circle in your notes: James 1:19 and 20 and memorize it. I cannot tell you, of all the things, this is a small rabbit trail, I’ll try to make it really small, in terms of transformation in my life, I don’t know if there’s anything that has helped me more than memorizing Scripture.

When I was a young Christian, I was around a group that was really into Scripture memory. I probably did it for the first three years with terrible motives. I was trying to memorize more verses than anybody else. You just can’t get the athlete out of me. You know? And it was wrong motives. But I would find myself praying and God would bring a verse and it was the answer. Someone asked me a question, God would bring a verse. I found myself ready to say something and God would bring a verse.

And then I watched Jesus under spiritual attack and he didn’t say, “Excuse me, Satan. I think I need to get back to the synagogue and look at some of these scrolls. Okay, Deuteronomy, here’s a good one. ‘Thou shall not tempt the Lord…’ can you hang on just one second? ‘...thy God.’” The average Jewish boy had the entire first five books of the Old Testament, the Torah, memorized.

Most of us watch seven hours of television a day in our homes. That’s forty-nine hours a week. The average college graduate, average college graduate, reads one book a year. The average high school graduate after he graduates doesn’t read another two or three books the rest of their life.

We have become a, soaking in, passive…and all the research on Alzheimer’s, for some that are concerned, it is when you use your brain and exercise your brain and learn new things, it is the greatest prevention against... You know what? It’s true of everything, you either use it or you lose it. And so, I would just encourage you.

The other is, I think there’s a really false view of how life change happens. We think trying hard and spiritual activities bring change. The Bible says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It’s thinking. If you think the same way you think right now, three hundred and sixty-five days from now you can try hard, give it your best effort, and you’ll be basically the same person.

You have to think differently about God. Think differently about you. Think differently about sin. Think differently about the future. Think differently about the past. How? The Word. And you renew your mind in the Word.

And so, all I want to say is I think part of this, you can feel like, “Oh, I can’t do this. It’s a pattern and it just blurts out of my mouth and I’m a spewer and...” Yes, you can! But I’m just saying it’s hard work, it’ll take time, you can write some things on 3x5 cards, “Dear, God, I desire to learn to get control of my tongue and speak only as Your Holy Spirit prompts me.” Write that down.

James 1:19 on the back of the card you write out James 1:19 and just stick that in your pocket and read it in the morning, and read it before you go to bed, and you do that for a month and I’ll tell you what, your mouth will change, because you’re reprogramming your mind according to the Truth. And the Spirit of God takes the Truth of God’s Word and He’ll bring about life change.

So, number three: Quick to hear, slow to speak. Third, slow to anger. There are a couple different words in the New Testament for anger. One is, you can almost hear it, it’s thumos, it means an explosion. And the other is orgay, and that’s this word here. It’s not so much about outbursts, but it’s harboring anger, resentful feelings, this anger that rolls around in your soul and your mind and your emotions, and over time, it builds.

He says, “Be slow to anger.” “Be slow, don’t allow that to happen.” Ecclesiastes says, “Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.”

We had an immediate response to anger; be a quick listener. An interim response is you’ve got to be slow to speak. Get a hold of your tongue. The life changing response to anger begins when we replace reaction with reflection. Reflection.

You think it through and guess where we are. We’re right back to what we’ve been talking about. You say, “I’ve got this anger” – reflection – “hmmmm. What’s underneath the hood?” And then as you can see, we ask the basic questions that we’ve been talking about. What root issue – injustice, hurt, frustration, or insecurity is behind this anger? In other words, what’s going on inside? And we get back down to what we talked about earlier. And so, you can say to yourself, “Okay, look, right, here it is. Alright, here it is. Am I hurt?” And the tool is, an “I feel” message. Well, am I frustrated? Well I need to shift it from “I demand” to a “I desire” for expectations. Am I feeling threatened? Well, who’s firing the darts? Is there something I need to learn? And you go right back to our last session. That’s why I wanted to do this one next.

Then you’re really right back to A-B-C-D. Quick to hear – okay, I want to listen, respond. Slow to speak – I’m going to stop stuff coming out of my mouth, and then I’m going to be slow to anger – I’m not going to, I’m going to say, “Okay, anger is a symptom. A) I’m going to acknowledge that I’m angry. B) I’m going to backtrack to the primary emotion, C) I’m going to consider the cause of it, and then D) determine the right response. Do I speak or not speak? Do I do it in person? Do I do it in a letter? Is it something that needs to be addressed or something I just need to let go of and release to God?

Isn’t it amazing how Scripture just very clearly lines out: here’s how to address that wild stallion. And really what that passage is in James 1:19 and 20, written to a group of people… you talk about an economic down time, pressure. And basically he said, “Look, here’s the spiritual bit in the wild stallion of anger in your life to bring it under control so your anger serves you instead of severs relationships with people that you love.”