Does anger make me a bad person?

Before we explore anger any further, I have really been feeling a sense of 'let's get our minds right' first. It's easy to analyze and write nice things about anger, but what about when it really effects me and I am so hurt that I respond in a way that is influenced by my anger?

The main reason that we are looking at anger, in the context of being an encourager for Christ, is to encourage us that anger itself is not wrong, it's our response that counts! In Eph 4:26 we are told 'In your anger, do not sin.' So, it is not our anger that is the sin, but our unmeasured response to the deep emotions that we know as anger.

As I said in our previous post, it is often difficult to encourage others when we are angry, but it is actually our enemies that we really need to be loving and encouraging (Matt 5:44). So, if we can get our minds right, and our hearts aligned with Christ, then hopefully, we'll be able to be angry and not sin. Wouldn't that be awesome!! To have such self control that we can manage our anger and not let it manage us? I believe that it's not only possible, but that it is part of GOD's plan for your life!

So, if you're still asking 'Does anger make me a bad person', then let me encourage you with this breif concluding thought. In God's eyes, He loves you no matter what. His love is unconditional, so whether you're a super positive person or a grumpy old pile of misery - GOD LOVES YOU!

It's not conditional on you being good or bad, it's not conditional on you getting things right and always having a smile on your face. So, to GOD, I believe that it's not about good or bad, because we'll always mess up somewhere along the line, it's about being saved. It's about being in a relationship with Him and constantly working on that relationship. (If you want to know more about this relationship - please mail us!).

Keep an eye out for our next post as we start to look at three types of anger in our lives, until then - BE BLESSED!

Alice the Camel - Introduction to Anger

When we were kids we used to sing this song called Alice the Camel. The idea was to start off at the highest number you could think of and count backwards as Alice loses another hump... as we would get closer and closer to zero we would get louder and louder and more excited! Eventually (depending on how high we could count!!) we would get to the last verse: Alice the camel has no humps so ALICE (shouting it now...) IS A HORSE!!! Then we'd keel over with much hilarity and, if our parents were extremely unlucky, we'd start again.

I think that anger is a lot like this song, only we don't fall over laughing. We start our day off with loads of humps, although some people have the unfortunate disposition to only have a few, and as each event of the day unravels we tend to lose a few humps. If the day has found itself to be highly frustrating, we may lose all our humps by lunch, and become a little hoarse from shouting, screaming and tossing the occasional piece of office stationary. We get angry! My dad always used to say to me: "When you get cross, things get worse." At the time it never really helped, but upon reflection, his words were wise.

Anger comes in more than one form, it can come gradually or immediately, we sometimes store it up and hold imaginary black-books against people. Either way, anger hinders us from encouraging others. The last thing you feel like doing when you're angry is saying: "Hey, good job!" If we are able to muster those words, it's often through gritted teeth!!

I look forward to journeying with you as we look at anger, what it is and how we can effectively deal with it through GOD's love and hand in our lives. Ultimately, I think we all want to be happy and encouraging people, but with the curve balls that often get pitched our way, it can be hard. Being a Christian, or Christ Follower, doesn't mean that we get it right all the time, but it does mean that we are Saved, Justified and Sanctified by GOD's grace. I love Rom 8:38 where we are reminded that nothing can separate us from GOD's love that is ours through Jesus Christ! So be encouraged by those words, even if you get so mad and let your anger totally control you, GOD can fix the situation!

A Challenge to the Church

(this is the final post in our series STOP LISTEN LOVE)

If you've been following all these posts on encouragement, we hope that you've been motivated by GOD to change and grow in certain areas of your life, just as we have... if so... then here are two steps to encorporating these principles into your life and church!

1. When people need your time, help, and gifts, STOP. LISTEN. LOVE. You are equipped AND called by God to meet the needs of others, and by doing this, you will become involved in this beautiful thing called the fellowship of believers.

Doing as Christ did - LOVE

LOVE

In this final look at the Stop. Listen. Love. principle we look at love. I will soon be sharing on anger and how it can hinder our love, but for now, let's continue with love. If we are going to encourage one another in love we need to know the following:

1. Don't let go. I think the most encouraging part of the crucifixion story is that Christ never let go. His act of love was so great that He never let go, even to the point of death. If we are going to encourage others, we need to stick by them. It’s one thing to say “You can do it!” But it’s another to support someone as they do it. You can encourage a tight-rope walker to cross to the other side, but will you get in the wheelbarrow that he’s pushing? Not letting go lets the other person know exactly how committed we are to helping them!

2. By not letting go, we are availing ourselves to be a part of the miracle that God is going to do in that person’s life. God is the very centre of love, it is the essence of His nature. Love can only exist where God is, and where God is, miracles happen. I don't know about you, but I mostly see miracles happen when we rely more on GOD's power and love, especially when times are tough. The saying "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." reminds us about the world's mentality. Being tough means that we stick around, our reward is that we become a part of GOD's miracles!

3. Encouragement is infectious – and here’s how we can grow church in encouragement. As we encourage those around us, they will be better equipped to encourage others too. If we have a culture of encouragement, people will feel like church is a place to belong do.

So, just as 1 Thess 5:11 says to keep encouraging as we are already in the habit of doing, I encourage you to keep doing the same. I think that we should encourage ALL THE TIME. We shouldn’t just encourage those who are down and oppressed, we should also encourage those who are doing fantastically well.

At the end of the Comrades Marathon, the crowds don’t only encourage the last 5000 people, if anything, they shout loudest for the front runners!

The winner receives thunderous applause as they enter the stadium – but why, they’re first, they don’t need encouragement. Let’s ignore them, they’ll be fine! Sounds ridiculous, but that’s so often how we treat those in church who do well, we get a little jealous, a little threatened.

So, what comes out of our mouths? Discouragement… and that’s when we get stuck in the place that I started talking about earlier. The place when church is no longer a place where people want to be.

Instead – we should be going out of our way to encourage one another – at every opportunity - to show Christ's love!

Doing as Christ did - LISTEN

LISTEN (part of the series Stop. Listen. Love.)

1. Listening helps us to get it right.

My wife and I attended the Alpha Marriage course a few years ago and I will never forget what they had to say about listening. We listen, so that we can know what is going on with the other person. We listen so that we can get it right! It sounds obvious, but how often do we listen before trying to encourage?

If you are in trouble and go to a lawyer, if you are sick and go to a doctor, if your car breaks down and you go to the mechanic – what do they do? Well, hopefully, they listen first. If they just try to fix something without knowing what to fix, they may spend a whole lot of energy, money and time, and not even get to the thing that’s not working.

2. Prepare to heal.

Once you have stopped, focussed and know what’s wrong, you can now prepare to heal. Healing is a process, it doesn’t happen quickly. When I was 12, we went on a family holiday to the Carmel Christian Guest Farm in George. It was over Christmas and we’d spent the day swimming down at Vic Bay and that night, I woke up with intense ear-ache. I lay in bed in with tears in my eyes, hoping the pain would go away, but it didn’t, it got worse, to the point that I began throwing up. The next day was Christmas… so you can imagine how many doctors work in a sea-side town on Christmas day! 

Somehow my parents managed to find an emergency doctor and we rushed off to see him. I sat on his examination bed whilst he listened to my parents explain and then he examined my ears, only to find that I had a massive inner-ear infection. I was expecting him to poke something in and fix the problem. I could feel the pressure and thought, “well if you just relieve the pressure, I’ll be fine.”

But he didn’t, he prepared for healing by giving my parents antibiotics to clear up the infection. There was no quick fix, I just had to wait whilst the healing took its course. Of course, because the doctor had listened and prepared, the infection went away and the pain was gone within a few hours. If we are going to encourage others, we need to know that we must prepare to be a part of the healing process.

3. When we listen, we can be USED BY GOD. If we don’t listen, we will miss out on an opportunity to encourage that person in the way that God wants them to be encouraged. I believe that part of God’s plan for allowing suffering is that it allows us to become a part of His divine plan to heal and encourage. 

God could quite easily fix all our problems by Himself, but He chooses to include us in the journey, because He knows how awesome it is to encourage someone, either through being there or by sending a miracle. We miss so many miracles in life purely because we ignore, resist or just don’t listen.

Let us learn to Stop AND Listen, that’s the only way that we’ll start to become better encouragers for CHRIST!

Doing as Christ did - STOP

STOP (Part of the Stop. Listen. Love. series)

1. We are saying, by our choice to stop what we are doing, that someone else is more important. When Jesus knelt in the dirt with the woman accused of adultery, He said nothing to her, but everyone knew that she had His full attention, His full priority at that moment. What an awesome moment that must have been for her!

Can you picture it, as the buzzing of voices moves to the ringing of silence in your ears, the people poised in prosecution hold their tongues and watch in awe and trepidation and the Messiah, Christ of Creation, ignores them and communicates in silence just how important that lady was! That brings prickles to my skin! What an amazing moment, what a life changing point for her and those watching – never underestimate the importance of stopping to listen and love.

2. When we stop, we are not distracted by what’s going on around us. The world keeps going, but we are stepping back to take note of something more important. Let’s think of that woman, thrown and Jesus feet, no doubt, there was a commotion, but Jesus was not distracted by the instigators around Him, He wants to absorb fully the situation at hand. Everyday we let life distract us, do we always realize how much we’re missing?

3. You can now focus all of your God given Spiritual gifts, heart attitude, your abilities, your personality and your experience to help this person. Your unique shape to minister, to meet the needs of this person.

As we seek to be better encouragers in Christ, let us take time to stop, listen and love.