First, be honest and admit how you are feeling and don’t pretend you are something that you are not. This only worsens and complicates matters and doesn’t resolve anything.

Second, accept yourself as a normal human being who sometimes has angry feelings.

Third, ask God to help you admit your true feelings and to lead you to the help you need to resolve them in healthy ways.

Fourth, accept responsibility for your feelings and don’t blame others for your feelings. What the other person has done to us is their issue, but how I respond is always my responsibility. Also, don’t blame the devil. When I get angry, the devil doesn’t make me do it. I can get angry all by myself. Neither is my anger a demon as some would have me believe. As the Bible says, when we don’t resolve our anger we “give a mighty foothold to the devil.” So, when we resolve our anger, he, the devil, loses his foothold!

Fifth, determine to resolve your feelings the same day or as quickly as possible

Sixth, express your feeling creatively—perhaps to an understanding friend first or to an “imaginary” substitute, and where necessary, to the person at whom you are angry. This is not an excuse to lash out at others. The goal should always be to “speak the truth in love.”²

When expressing anger we need to verbalize the emotion. Talking about the anger doesn’t resolve it. The emotion needs to be released—not as an attack, nor to blame another for it, but as an expression of our feeling—realizing that our anger is both our problem and our responsibility. When this is done adequately, the anger dissipates.

It is neither true nor helpful to say, “You make me mad.” This is blaming the other person for your reaction and puts him or her on the defensive. It is more helpful to say, “I need to talk to you about such and such. I feel very angry about this. I know my anger is my problem and I may be overreacting, but I need to talk to you about this matter.” That is, use “I” messages, not “you” messages.

Anger can also be expressed in writing, as David did in the Psalms.³ I have done this many times, after which I have torn up the piece of paper. Where necessary I have very carefully re-written those feelings (to speak the truth in love) and personally shared them with the other person or people involved.

Resolving relationships is very important. Christ reminds us that if we have any conflict with another person, we are to put things right before bringing our gifts to God.⁴

Seventh, before expressing anger, check to see if you are feeling afraid or threatened, because anger is often used as a defense against feeling afraid. If fear is the problem, talk about that.

Eighth, if you can’t resolve your anger in any of the above ways, be sure to see a highly trained, qualified counselor. I know this can be costly but we can’t afford not to resolve our anger. Otherwise the adverse effects caused by unresolved anger and especially hostility will be far more costly in terms of relationships, and emotional and physical health.

Last, when you have resolved your anger, forgive, forgive, forgive! This will forever free you from all who have hurt you.

For physical, emotional and spiritual health we need to be in touch with all our feelings (positive and negative), and use and express them in creative ways. This, too, is the way of love, for unresolved anger turns into resentment and builds barriers between friends, loved ones and even God, and blocks out love.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you again for your Word which gives positive instructions for healthy and productive living. Help me to apply it to my daily living, and resolve and get rid of all negative emotions. And help me to do this in healthy ways and always to speak the truth in love. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

NOTE: This series on anger has been adapted from my article “Taming Your Anger” on line at: http://tinyurl.com/b439f.

1. 1 Peter 2:1 (TLB) (NLT).

2. Ephesians 4:15.

3. See Psalm 109.

4. See Mark 11:25.

One of the worst things we can do with anger is to deny and repress it. Long-term repressed anger turns into hostility and contaminates everything we do. And there is probably nothing more destructive to personal relationships than unresolved buried anger or hostility.

Even worse, when triggered, it can have fatal results. According to The Bulletin, an Australian magazine, in one year 80 percent of the homicide victims in one state were killed by family members or intimate friends. Most of these fatal attacks were the results of quarrels in everyday situations.

Hostility can show itself in any of a number ways: a negative, critical attitude, nagging, sarcasm, gossip, resentment, hatred, slamming doors, shouting, taking it out on the children, kicking the cat, aggressive driving, childish “I’m hurt!” crying, rebellion, denial of sex in marriage, deviant behavior (prostitutes, for example, are often angry at their fathers or men who abused them), putting people down, constantly running late, passivity, withdrawal, rage, and even criminality—or becoming saccharine sweet in an attempt to deny that they are angry. The list is endless.

Or, as Dr. Cecil Osborne explains in his book, The Art of Understanding Yourself, repressed anger may eventually come out in the “form of some psychosomatic illness: ulcers, asthma, arthritis, colitis, dermatitis, heart ailments or any one of a score of others.”²

Hostility attacks people. Healthy anger is directed against wrong(one word-)doing, is connected with love, and is the right amount of anger for the given situation. A helpful question to ask yourself if you think you might be overreacting is: “Should I be this angry?”

People who overreact to situations often have a lot of repressed anger. The immediate situation which out-of-proportion anger brings out doesn’t cause it, it triggers what is already there.

The Bible also says, “If you are slow to get angry, you are wise. But if you are quick-tempered, you only show foolishness.”³ This isn’t an excuse for denying one’s anger, as denial can be equally foolish and destructive.

Being quick-tempered is usually overreacting, another sign of unresolved anger.

Again, as the Bible reminds us: “So get rid of your feelings of hatred [anger]. Don’t just pretend to be good! Be done with dishonesty.”⁴ Also, “If you are angry, don’t sin by nursing your grudge. Don’t let the sun go down with you still angry—get over it quickly; for when you are angry, you give a mighty foothold to the Devil.”⁵

How then do we resolve anger? We’ll answer this question in tomorrow’s Daily Encounter.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to always be in touch with my true feelings whatever they are, and be honest about them to myself and to you, and learn how to resolve them in healthy and loving ways. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Ephesians 4:26-27 (TLB) (NLT).

2. Cecil Osborne, The Art of Understanding Yourself, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1967, p. 61.

3. Proverbs 14:29 (NLT).

4. 1 Peter 2:1 (TLB) (NLT).

5. Ephesians 4:26-27 (TLB) (NLT).

Your test seems to indicate that you have some buried anger,” said the counselor to his client. “Do you think this could be true?” he asked.

“Me! Angry? Certainly not,” replied the client. “I’ll punch you in the nose for saying that!”

When it comes to anger we all have a tiger of sorts within. At times it provides great courage and motivation. It causes some of us to lash out and hurt others. At other times we are so afraid it will get out of control we bury it so that nobody, including ourselves, will ever know it exists.

Many of us were taught that anger is bad and to show it is immature. The mature person, however, doesn’t deny his anger. He has learned to express it in appropriate ways.

Even though some people never show their anger, everybody gets angry sometimes. Anger is a God-given emotion. Of itself it is neither good nor bad, right nor wrong. It’s what we do with it and how we handle it that counts.

In fact, there are many things we ought to be angry about, such as social injustice, child abuse, greed, and even legalistic religion that makes rules more important than people and keeps people in needless bondage.

Jesus was very angry with the religious people of his day for this very reason. When he healed a man on the Sabbath, the Pharisees were so furious they plotted to kill him. To them, religious observances were more important than the needs of people. We read that Jesus “looked around at them in anger…distressed at their stubborn hearts.”²

Think too of Florence Nightingale. She was very angry about the terrible conditions suffered by wounded soldiers in the Crimean War. She used her anger creatively to bring about major changes in nursing care. This is a creative and healthy use of anger.

To be continued.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to so live that I will always recognize and resolve my negative emotions as quickly as possible, and do so in creative and helpful ways—and never ever become bitter or nurse grudges. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Ephesians 4:26-27(TLB)(NLT).

2. Mark 3:5 (NIV).

Melvin McDonald served in the Canadian Navy during World War II. One Monday, the 79-year-old McDonald and his wife showed up at the front desk at police headquarters in Winnipeg. His opening line to the police officer who offered to assist him was, “I got a grenade.” He wasn’t making a threat, mind you—just stating a fact. With that, he took a hand grenade out of a brown paper bag and gave it to the officer.

The shocked constable kept his head. He did, however, call the bomb squad immediately. Then things really started to happen. Most of the main floor of the Public Safety Building was evacuated, the fire department was put on alert, and the bomb squad showed up with all its sophisticated paraphernalia.

The grenade was still primed with explosive, and its fuse was intact. “I’ve had it in the house all these years,” the veteran said. “I used to have it on a stand.” His nephew had suggested it ought to be turned over to the police.

An embarrassed McDonald apologized for all the commotion he caused. It was only a keepsake from a training exercise in Scotland in the early 1940s.²

A very unhealthy way, one of the worst, to live is by burying and denying unresolved anger, hurts, bitterness, etc., from the past. These are the supercharged, repressed, negative emotions that, like an old live hand grenade, when triggered can cause an emotional explosion and severely damage or destroy close relationships. On the other hand, if these emotions stay buried and get triggered, they can cause an implosion and destroy a person’s health and well-being.

Like all of God’s directives, it is not without good reason that the Bible advises us to get rid of these destructive emotions. And we don’t get rid of them by burying them and denying their existence. It is imperative that they are recognized, expressed in creative rather than destructive ways, and resolved.

In the next three Daily Encounters we’ll talk about “Taming Your Anger” to further show the importance of resolving buried emotions and explain how to resolve them.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for your Word that admonishes us to, ‘Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.’ Please help me to recognize any of these destructive emotions and attitudes in me and show me how to resolve and get rid of them forever. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

Note: For further help read “Taming Your Anger” at: http://tinyurl.com/b439f.

1. Ephesians 4:31 (NIV).

2. Chad J Hedgepath. Cited on KneEmail, http://www.oakhillcoc.org.