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.

Here is the way this is supposed to work:

1. Your personal relationship with Jesus (not your ministry or career).
2. Your spouse (if you have one).
3. Your children.
4. Being a productive member of the Body (following your Pastor-leader and loving your neighbor with the love of Christ).
5. Everything else (your ministry, career, etc.)

Following these priorities—it takes work daily—will produce godly order in your life.

Your mindset in training your children is the key to success. Many parents are naïve. I speak from experience. I think I just assumed because we were raising our children in a Christian home and I was in full time ministry they somehow wouldn’t face the same temptations as the world.

But they will. Your children have flesh that has to be trained and disciplined. Even Jesus faced great temptation in the wilderness and had to deal with his flesh.

The best kids raised in a Christian environment have to deal with the strong pull of the world. There is no such thing as secular hormones and Christian hormones. There are just hormones.

The key to helping your children through the difficult maze of adolescence is parental monitoring and being continually involved in their lives. If you have been lax in this area and see the need to tighten some things up, here are some suggestions on how to do it:

1. As their parents, you have the right to know what is going on.

They are living under your roof. You are paying the bills. You brought them into the world and you can take them out. Just kidding on that last one, although you may be tempted sometimes. But I regress.

Because they are under your care, this gives you a say as to what goes on in their life. You have the right to monitor what is happening in their rooms, where they are going, etc.

I was amazed that the parents of the teenagers involved in the Columbine massacre had no idea what was happening behind the closed doors of their bedrooms. You have a right to know what they are watching on TV, what is going on with their computers, and what is happening on their cell phones.

2. When you make changes, always do it in love.

You dearly love your children. You want what is best for them. They don’t always know what is best because they are not mature.

If you are making some major tightening up adjustments it can be painful. The best way to do it is to sit down with your children and honestly tell them what is going on. Let them know things are changing and you are going to be more involved in their lives.

Above all let them know you are doing these things not to put them in bondage, but because you love them and have their best interests at heart. They probably won’t totally understand. They may not like it. In fact, they probably won’t.

They may ask you the classic question, “Don’t you trust me?” (It’s not them personally you don’t trust, but you don’t trust their immature flesh and the temptations the devil will present them). They may kick and scream and resist. In fact they probably will. When this happens…

3. Be strong to stay the course

2 Chronicles 15:7 “Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.”

It is not easy to be a parent. You have to be tough to stand up for what is right even in the middle of kicking and screaming. They don’t always understand. But God promises the WORK you put into it will bring rewards. A day will come that they will thank you for the investment you put into them. The Word of God is the truth they must have to navigate life successfully. Truth will always prevail.