Extinguishing The Fire of Anger

By Ken Blount

In all the time you and your spouse spend together, your husband or wife will eventually do something that makes you angry.

He’ll invite friends over before discussing it with you. She’ll leave the cap off the toothpaste tube. He will disrespect you in front of your family or friends. Big or small, important or unimportant, anger-charged situations are going to come up. And since God created us to be able to feel anger, you’re going to get mad.

Anger can be like a fire welling up inside of you. You feel hot. The blood rushes to your head. You feel as if you’re about to catch on fire.

So what are you supposed to do when your husband or wife makes you mad?

Well remember back to when you were a kid. What were you taught to do if you catch on fire?

Stop, Drop and Roll.

And that’s what we do when anger starts to burn inside of us.

First of all STOP. Slow down, and analyze the situation.

My dear brothers, take note 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. James 1:19-20 NIV

If you want to do what the Word says and be slow to become angry, then you’ve got to take time to stop.

If you and your husband are out with friends and you’re telling a story. Then all of a sudden your spouse takes over. He interrupts you, and it becomes his story.

Stop. Ask yourself some questions.

Why am I mad? I don’t like being interrupted. It’s rude!

Who am I mad at? My husband.

Does he have any idea what he just did? Probably not.

Is getting my feelings hurt going to make the situation any better? Not at all.

Should I say something? Yes, but I’ll wait to mention it on the way home. By then I’ll have had some time to cool off, and I can explain that I don’t like to be interrupted.

That’s it. In the few seconds that it took to ask yourself some questions, you’ve avoided your night being ruined by anger.

You don’t have to give your husband the silent treatment all night so he knows that he made you mad. You don’t have to get into a fight on the drive home.

You took time to stop, and that helped you slow down your anger. Now you’re over it. Way to go!

Here’s another typical situation that comes up in marriage.

It’s almost time to put the kids to bed. You decide to chase them around the house and tickle them until they can’t stand it any longer. Your wife tells you to knock it off; the kids don’t need to get all wound up right before bed.

You don’t like that. You don’t like being told what to do. You’re just trying to have some fun with the kids. What’s so bad about that?

Before it goes too far, stop. Remember that your goal is to be slow to get angry.

Ask yourself some questions.

Why am I mad? I don’t think I was doing anything wrong. And I don’t like to be corrected!

Who am I mad at? My wife.

Was she trying to make me mad? No.

Does she have a point? Yeah, I can see how it might be harder for them to fall asleep after all that tickling.

Should I say something? Yeah, I should apologize and help the kids calm down.

Voilă! Your anger is gone. The problem is solved.

There’s something to this being slow to anger, or God wouldn’t have bothered mentioning it. So remember next time you feel anger welling up on the inside of you, just take a second to stop!

The next step is to DROP.

Once you settle on a solution move on and forgive the person who has offended you. It’s so important in marriage that we develop the skill of dropping.

To be able to move on and forgive your spouse is not only important to your marriage, but to your walk with God.

And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him and let it drop (leave it, let it go), in order that your Father Who is in heaven may also forgive you your [own] failings and shortcomings and let them drop. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your failings and shortcomings. Mark 11:25-26 Amplified

If you can’t forgive your spouse, then God can’t forgive you!

Forgiveness is that important to God! He says, “You do it, or I won’t.”

It’s very common in marriage to get into an argument and get angry with your spouse. Eventually you make up and forgive each other. But is that end of it? Or the next time you get into a fight, do you bring up what you supposedly forgave your spouse for last time?

If you bring it up again, have you truly forgiven? Have you really dropped it? Or are you holding a grudge?

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:31-32 NIV

We have to get rid of bitterness and anger and all the things that come with them and forgive—not just with lip service—but truly, forgive from our hearts.

What if Jesus brought up the last sin you confessed every time you came to Him? What if He rubbed it in your face? Would you feel like He had really forgiven you?

The good news is that Jesus isn’t that way. He is faithful and just to forgive us. And He not only forgives, He forgets.

Think about that. Jesus forgets.

Do you think He has a memory eraser like in the movie Men In Black that wipes our sins out of His mind? No, it’s not so much that Jesus forgets our sin, but He chooses not to remember it.

Let Jesus be your example and forgive your spouse when he or she makes you angry. Choose not to remember it.

Just drop it!

And the last step is ROLL.

See if you can turn the situation around for good. You can use the things that anger you or frustrate you as motivation.

A big part of what frustrates Trudi and me is the state of the American family. What I see on television bothers me. The way people are raising their kids bothers me. It bothers me that people think that they can just go to church once and week and let the world take over the rest of the time.

I want to see fathers leading families who love God. I want to see mothers who know the Word of God and are instructing and bringing up their kids to really know and love Jesus.

It makes me mad to see what the devil is doing to families today. Some of our frustrations about the state of families gave us the idea for Relative.

Maybe what’s frustrating you is really a God-given anger because God wants you to do something about it.

Think about this: If Millard Fuller hadn’t gotten angry about housing for the poor, Habitat for Humanity wouldn’t have been started, and thousands of poor people would not have homes of their own. If Martin Luther King, Jr. hadn’t gotten angry about racial injustice, the Civil Rights movement would not have progressed as it did. If the Apostle Paul hadn’t gotten angry, we would be missing a huge piece of the wisdom of the New Testament.

Under the right circumstances anger can be a catalyst for good. Anger, like a good horse, must be bridled.

If God hadn’t dealt constructively with His anger about sin, He would have destroyed the world. Instead He sent Jesus to die on the Cross and restore our relationship with Him.

Pray that God will help you to gain control of your anger so that you can use it for His honor. You do not have to make that change in your own strength, because as you prayerfully seek to follow the guidance of the Bible, the Spirit of God will enable you to do it. Let Him show you how to deal with your anger and frustration to bring Him glory in all that you do.

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