My granddaughter, Beverly, is now in the “tender twos”, so tantrums come with the territory.  Some, of course, are for “show” –  the tears are “on tap”, the crying “canned”, and the misery a mirage.  Others, though, are of the real, honest-to-goodness “I’m tired and hungry and things aren’t going my way and I just can’t take it anymore” variety.  The issue that sets it off isn’t what fuels it to keep it going.  Those tantrums are an expression of helplessness.  Once the tantrum starts, Beverly’s feelings of anger and frustration simply overwhelm her.  She has yet to learn the important lesson that SHE is bigger than her feelings.

I’ve been thinking about this area lately, not just for kids throwing tantrums, but for adults and how WE deal with our own feelings, especially of anger and frustration.  Somehow, for most of us, it’s enough to just stop throwing tantrums; we never carry the application of the principle through as far as it could go.  We accept that we can, or should, control our actions, because we are convinced that our will is stronger than our impulses; even when we do what we know we shouldn’t, such as having that second piece of pie, we know that we could choose not to.  (I’m not talking the pathological here.)  In the same way, we need to consider that we can, and even should, control our emotional responses.  I don’t mean that we can necessarily choose our immediate, visceral response to a situation, but we can choose our next response!  We need to learn to be bigger than our feelings, too!

God clearly expects us to do so.  Consider all these verses:

Ps. 4:4  In your anger do not sin;  when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.  Offer right sacrifices and trust in the the LORD.

Ps. 37:8  Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret – it leads only to evil.  For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.

Pr. 16:32  Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.

Pr. 19:11   Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offence.

Pr. 22:24  Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared.

Pr. 29:8   Mockers stir up a city, but wise men turn away anger.

Pr. 29:11  A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.

Pr. 29:22   An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins.

Pr. 30:33  For as churning the milk produces butter, and as twisting the nose produces blood, so stirring up anger produces strife.

Ecc. 7:9  Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.

Matt. 5:22  [Jesus said]  But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.

2 Co. 12:20   For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be.  I fear that there may be quarrelling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder.

Eph. 4:26  “In your anger do not sin.”  Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.

Eph. 4:31   Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

Col. 3:8   But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these:  anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

Jam.  1:19, 20    My dear brothers, take not of this:  Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

Some take “in your anger, do not sin” as condoning anger, but looking at it through the totality of the Scriptural witness, that doesn’t wash.  The focus is not on the fact that yes, we do get angry, but rather on the need to be very careful where we let that anger lead us.  As James sums it up: man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.  Why not?  Anger may lead us to stop listening, to harden our hearts, to shut our eyes to another’s point of view, to speak ill of others, to be foolish, to foster dissension, to show unforgiveness, to seek revenge (no matter how subtly!), to be ungrateful, or to sin in any number of other ways.  It places Me at the center stage.  (side note:  We talk about “righteous anger”, but since Jesus was the only Righteous One, I’m not convinced that WE can ever truly be “righteously” angry, even when angry about the same kinds of things that God is angry about.  There is not one Scripture that commands us to be angry – even “righteously angry” – about anything.)

The modern notion is that one may define emotional tendencies in static categories, as if they were immutable characteristics that others must simply accept and deal with. “I’m just not a patient person” “I just can’t help myself – I get mad and have to vent, but then it’s all over, so everyone should be cool with it. I don’t mean anything by it.” “I’m just naturally grumpy.”  These excuses won’t stand up in Biblical court.   God would not warn us – no, command us – about controlling our anger if it were not, in fact, possible for us to do so. No matter our natural tendencies, the Christian life is about living unnaturally above them.  We can choose to turn away from anger.  This isn’t the same as “stuffing” it, burying it alive to fester and eat us up from the inside.  It means deliberately choosing to let it go, replacing it with giving thanks, with forgiveness, with sympathy, with reason, with whatever fits to disarm it.  This doesn’t apply only to the big Angry, either!  When talking about anger, we tend to think of “anger management” issues (that most of us don’t have), or the “seeing red” variety, which most of us don’t experience that often, but there is a vast spectrum of anger down from those extremes that all of us do experience.  Oh, we may not call it being “angry”; we substitute “frustrated”, or “a little ticked off”, or “bugged”, or “upset”, but they’re all actually just mild versions of that same emotion.  The more we conquer our little angers, the easier our victory over the big ones.

I’m especially intrigued by the verses that speak of being “slow to anger”; that is a characteristic of God given in a number of Scripture references.   This speaks not just of turning away from anger, but of choosing not to get angry in the first place!  Whether we were born naturally more tolerant and easy-going or not, we can learn to become that way.  For example, I have a great tendency toward impatience.  (When people have gushed, “Oh, you must be so patient, for God to give you FIVE children!”, my reply has always been “No, I’m terribly IMpatient – that’s why God gave me five children:  to teach me some lessons.”)  A number of years ago, I decided to take one specific situation – waiting in lines – and try to deliberately change my response.  Being impatient didn’t make the line move any faster, after all!  If anything, it made it seem slower.  It certainly raised my blood pressure.  Worst, it led me to judge my fellow line-mates without compassion and made me  more inclined to be short with the clerk.  The root of my impatience was PRIDE – as in “I’m really the only one who matters here and everything should go smoothly so that I am not inconvenienced!”  Not pretty, huh?  So, with God’s help, I decided to deliberately counter my complaints with reasoning.  If I said, “This is taking for-e-ver!”, then I answered myself, “No, this is just taking a few more minutes than I expected.  God has His reasons.”  “Why is that clerk taking soooooooo loooooooong with that person????” Answer: “The clerk is giving that customer the same service I would want her to give me.” or “Every clerk is new at some point and has to learn.  I might not do any better.” or “Maybe she’s having a really bad day and has had customers being really mean to her.”  Thinking “Hey, lady!  You’re supposed to have your check ready, ya know!” forced the confession “I’ve stood there chatting and forgot to get my checkbook out, too.”  Do I still get impatient sometimes?  Sure.  But I can honestly say that most of the time, I am not bothered by being in line anymore.  It is certainly a much more pleasant feeling than standing there stewing.  And being patient not only improves MY day, but that of others: my attitude of patience sometimes helps others in line, and I love getting up to a frazzled clerk who looks up, expecting to find hostility, and being able to give her a sincere smile!

In the book “The Happiness Project”, by Gretchen Rubin, she talks a lot about the concept of choosing our emotional responses deliberately rather than simply being reactive.  There are many famous people through history who have written about setting themselves to be cheerful, happy, uncomplaining, etc.  Rubin quotes Ste. Therese of Lisieux who said that, “for the love of God and my Sisters … I take care to appear happy and especially to be so.”   If we can control our anger, as we are clearly expected to do, and which is the strongest negative emotion we have, then there is no reason not to believe that we can likewise exercise control on the side of setting our minds toward positive emotions – gratitude, cheerfulness, patience.  If we do that, just think of the impact we could have on our families, our coworkers, our churches, on all we meet!

I have a feeling this could be the start of something big….