I was recently given the assignment to write down what makes me angry, every time I get angry. Even if it was a petty as “you coughed through the entire meeting”, I was to write it down. I obliged and did the assignment for a month. I do not see myself as an angry person, yet I found plenty of entries in my “anger journal.”
Obviously there was a reason behind this assignment. I do not yet know the exact reason I was assigned this task, but there are some things that I learned from doing it.
First, I learned that most of my anger is an expression of other feelings. I get angry when I feel rejected, ignored or excluded. I get angry when I am not heard on whatever issue is being discussed, or when I feel that someone has taken advantage of me.
Another thing that I learned was that most of the time when I get mad, the other person has no idea that I feel that way. There was no intention for harm or mistreatment on their part. This is not news to me, I would have told that to someone else who was somehow offended, but the list made it obvious in my own incidences with anger.
As I look over the list of what made me angry during that month, I see two distinct attitudes appear within myself. The healthy attitude is the one that says, “learn and move on.” In many cases, I look at an entry and think, “Yeah, I can see why I felt that way, but that happened in February.” I now know why that incident made me mad, but it no longer affects me.
The other attitude is much more damaging. Reading the list serves as a reminder in the areas that I have not yet forgiven the offense. “That’s right, so-and-so did that to me.” This is where the list becomes either very dangerous or most helpful. Do I choose to hold onto the offense of whatever caused me to get angry, or do I use that anger to turn to God to help me forgive the offender? My nature is to hold onto the offense, to feel that I am entitled to be angry. After all, that is what the whole paragraph about other feels suggests; I am entitled to be angry because I felt rejected or ignored ...or...or....or...
But the Bible tells me that I am to forgive. “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive you sins.” (Matt 6:14-15) That is the real value in doing an assignment like this; to point out to me where God is working in my life to get rid of unforgiveness so that I can become more like Him.
