Anger

Anger is a powerful emotion. God tells us in Ephesians 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." Wow! That's hard to do! Does that mean we can never be angry? Of course not! Jesus got angry when his temple was being used for gambling and such. He had justified anger. What exactly does that mean? It means we can get angry when someone has done us wrong but we need to examine our anger before we use it. I used to carry a lot of anger around towards my father and other abusers. That's ok but it's not ok if I use that anger in a harmful way. IE; revenge, taking it out on those around me, abusing myself et cetera. We can confront the source of anger but in a Godly way with patience and firmness. Letting go of anger is healthy, keeping it to ourselves is not! Inevitably that anger will eventually surface and when it does the outcome is usually worse than if we would have faced the problem right away. The thing that helps me the most is to say a prayer before I confront the issue but sometimes anger happens so quickly and you don't get that chance. It's ok, we're not perfect! Pray about the situation afterwards and ask God for forgiveness. It's yours for the asking!