| << | Contents | >> |
Exchanged Glory V: God Meant it for Good
<page 87>
Chapter Fourteen: Reclaiming Anger and Sorrow
I was learning to see anger and sorrow as friends rather than foes. Although sin had twisted them, the answer wasn’t to get rid of them; it was to discover their proper place in God’s plan.
A New Approach to Anger and Sorrow
My emotions were out of control, causing me to consistently react in ways I believed were ungodly. I tried to calm them, but I couldn’t seem to do it. I could medicate myself for a time with worship or Bible study, but then the inner storm would be provoked again.
Eventually, I decided that my entire approach needed to change. Where previously I had regarded Anger and Sorrow as sinful, I needed to learn to see them as a part of me that God had created. They weren’t bad in and of themselves; they were just showing up in sinful forms. I stopped trying to get rid of them and switched to trying to work through them by His grace. This change is shown in the highlighted portions of Figure 16.
| Prev Fig | Next Fig |
In my new approach, when Frustration led to Anger, I tried to identify the cause of the Frustration and to use the Anger as motivation put in place a godly plan to fix it (the arrow from the Anger box to the Obedient Behavior and Attitudes box). I took a similar approach when Long Term Suffering led to Sorrow. I used my sadness to motivate changes in what I was doing (the arrow from the Sorrow box to the Obedient Behavior and Attitudes box). I hoped, by God’s grace, to slowly bring change to myself or my situations in ways that would remove the <page 88>sources of these negative emotions. If I could do so, I would eventually be able to return to living largely out of Fun Emotions and Desires.
Since my current source of Anger and Sorrow was my job, I started reading self-help books that told me how to gain the skills and disciplines I needed for my job. I let my strong emotions drive me to develop enough Knowledge and Self-Control to deal with the sources of my pain.
Shining through All of My Humanity
Embracing Anger and Sorrow in this way was such a change from my previous approach that I wondered if I was giving up on the Holy Spirit. I had spent my Christian life trying to let His love and peace flow through me – and Anger and Sorrow didn’t fit into that vision. These emotions made me want to grab control of my circumstances and fix them rather than to wait for God to work. They led me to put in place action plans, which seemed like living by my own strength rather than relying on His. I didn’t want to follow programs; I wanted to express the spontaneous power of God within me.
That is why as a young Christian, rather than letting myself get Angry or Sorrowful, I fell on my face before Him. (Of course, sometimes I first threw something across the room or put my fist through a wall, but I prayed fairly quickly afterward.). I wanted to be motivated by love and trust, not Frustration. I sought to endure Long Term Suffering, not fight my way out of it.
I was missing the fact that Jesus wanted to shine through all of my humanity – including my Anger and Sorrow. Though it was good that I fell on my face before Him, I also needed to see that my more explosive emotions were as much a part of the “earthen vessel” that held His power as compassion and peace were (2 Corinthians 4:7).
Seeing Anger and Sorrow as Friends
Adding Anger and Sorrow into the mix of my “permitted emotions” was a huge adjustment. I doubt I would have had the courage to do it if I had been able to find any other decent option. Those emotions had been getting me into trouble for as long as I could remember, so I was highly skeptical of the idea that I now needed to embrace them. God seemed to be speaking to me through my circumstances, however, so I accepted what I was feeling and determined to walk through it to some sort of resolution.
Doing so was a major step toward overcoming the Unprotected Heart Stronghold. It was similar to what had happened when I accepted Fear and Guilt as valuable parts of me. I was learning to see Anger and Sorrow as friends rather than foes. Although sin had twisted them, the answer wasn’t to get rid of them; it was to discover their proper place in God’s plan.
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: …a time to weep …and a time to hate …
(Ecclesiastes 3:1; 4; 8)
Ecclesiastes teaches that even extreme emotions like those that cause hatred and weeping aren’t too dangerous to motivate us. There is a time and a proper expression for them. We just have to <page 89>patiently work with God as He reveals that time and expression. These sorts of emotions are good gifts that God wants to empower by His Spirit. We see examples of this in the Bible:
The Spirit of God came on Saul when he heard the report and he flew into a rage. He grabbed the yoke of oxen and butchered them on the spot. He sent the messengers throughout Israel distributing the bloody pieces with this message: "Anyone who refuses to join up with Saul and Samuel, let this be the fate of his oxen!" The terror of GOD seized the people, and they came out, one and all, not a laggard among them. (emphasis added)
(1 Samuel 11:6-7, The Message)
The Spirit of God inspired rage in Saul’s heart. This means that even great Anger has its place in God’s plan. In the following scripture, I am amazed at the assortment of potentially dangerous emotions described in a positive way. If you are looking for one scripture on which to hang the idea that Fear, Guilt, Anger, and Sorrow can be beneficial if expressed well, this is it.
For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter. (Emphasis added)
I began to have faith that God could transform my more explosive emotions into helpers rather than temptations. I could learn to handle them in a godly manner. I concluded that it was His work that had brought me to my job-related trials, and this gave me hope that my rage and depression could be resolved in a life-giving way. What looked like evil was meant for good.
Parenting Anger and Sorrow
The parts of my internal Parent that dealt with Anger and Sorrow had been suppressed since I was twelve years old, first by the smoking fetish and then by my addiction-like approach to Christianity. When they resurfaced, my internal Parent almost instantly began to resemble the abusive, demanding tyrant that had led me to cut myself with razor blades. It drove me to work so hard at my job that I began to physically break down under the stress. I found myself unable to relax as it pushed me beyond reason.[37]
This was a much more difficult learning experience than when I had embraced Fear and Guilt. There was no dramatic encounter with the Holy Spirit that set the transformation in motion.[38] The changes were not a peaceful growth process in which the Holy Spirit gently revealed His ways. Instead, I faced a long period of painful experiments in which I tried to come to grips with my heart. I fell short, learned from experience, and slowly made my way forward.
After close to two years, I had learned enough lessons to have some confidence about what I was doing. I began to make a clear distinction between what my emotions were telling me and what the truth told me. I saw that though emotions were important, they were not always good judges of reality. I needed to use God’s word to interpret my circumstances rather than the angst within <page 90>me. In this way, my mind and will (my Adult)[39] could find God’s view and make choices based on it.
I had been doing this for years as a fallback mechanism when I didn’t seem able to find any other way to stay away from sin. For example, with sexual temptations I would analyze how God wanted me to live, make solid decisions to live that way, and override my emotions. I now made this sort of process a conscious and growing part of my walk with God. It felt unspiritual, but the sheer lack of any other workable alternative caused me to believe the Holy Spirit was working with me.
I concluded that He was the One Who was giving my mind the ability to think clearly and my will the ability to make tough decisions. Living in this way didn’t feel as exciting as sensing God’s presence in worship or Bible study, but it was exciting in a different way to discover a spirituality that worked in practical everyday living.
There were doubts over whether I was acting like a hypocrite. I had always believed my love should come from my heart, and I tended to equate my heart with my emotions. Since I was now using my intellect to make decisions which disagreed with my emotions, I wondered if I was being insincere. I found in the Scriptures, however, that a person’s heart is more than his or her emotions. It also includes their mind and will.
The heart of the righteous studies how to answer …
A man's heart plans his way, …
These sorts of scriptures helped me to see that using my mind and will to guide my emotions wasn’t an act of hypocrisy. Instead, it was as much an expression of my heart as the “out-gushings” of my gut were. Studying and planning weren’t a case of me hiding behind ideas rather than expressing my “true self.” Instead, they were a way to keep my “true self” from being overrun by the fickleness of my feelings. My well thought out choices were a way of keeping my heart with all diligence.
Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.
The OK Stronghold
On my job, where previously I felt as if I had little choice but to follow my creative instincts, I now disciplined myself to endure drudgery. Though this sometimes drained my joy, which seemed both unnatural and unspiritual, I did my best to trust that it was part of a transformation God was performing. I came up with the analogy of the train tracks that I mentioned in Chapter Eight, “The Hedge of Thorns.” My heart was like a train that tended to run along tracks.[40] By disciplining myself in faith, I was laying down new tracks. I believed that in time, the Holy Spirit <page 91>would bring those new tracks together into a way of thinking and feeling that would produce inner freedom.[41]
Many issues were exposed in the process. One had to do with the way I had been using creativity to sustain my sense of self-worth. As I worked through this issue, I stumbled onto a stronghold that I called the OK Stronghold.[42] It was a set of thought patterns in which people try to find their worth in proving themselves. In my case, I had been doing that through self-expression. Others took different approaches (making money, being nice, achieving fame …). There were many ways to be misled, but only God was our true source of acceptance and appreciation.
A good deal of my Anger and Sorrow had been incited by my attempts to prove myself. As I had come under misleading judgments, I had thrashed back and forth searching for some way to regain my emotional equilibrium. I now set my heart toward God’s truth on the subject. Though I wouldn’t give up on self-expression, I would no longer use it to prove myself. Instead, I would live based on His word, even if it meant that I looked like a failure to everyone but Him. I would find my acceptance in His love, His blood, and His work, rather than in anything I could do.
I put together the following list of OK Busters to help me (these are described in detail in the second book of this series, Exchanged Glory II: The OK Stronghold):
OK Buster 1: I will judge by the truth rather than by my feelings[43]
OK Buster 2: I am eternally OK by the blood of Jesus[44]
OK Buster 3: I have only one Judge and Master[45]
OK Buster 4: Life isn’t about feeling OK by my standards; it is about knowing Jesus[46]
These principles led me to devote time to memorizing Scriptures, and since I was learning about wisdom on my job, I decided to start with God’s book on the subject, Proverbs. The third book in this series, Exchanged Glory III: Wise as Serpents, describes what happened next. Solomon’s words from Proverbs exploded in my spirit with power and transformed my view of the world.[47]
My internal Parent was healing. Though I didn’t know what the Unprotected Heart Stronghold was or how it worked, God was removing its foundation. I was experimenting with my emotions and learning how to parent them.
Search Comments
This page has been visited 0004 times.
| << | Contents | >> |
10 per page