I’m a firm believer in the idea that you need to get to the root of any difficult issue in your life before you can hope to change that which needs to change or heal that which needs healing. There is the basic answer to why we do that which we don’t want to do (our imperfect nature) and then there is the deeper answer that is harder to find, but when you do the work it takes, when you mine it out of your heart, then you are able to truly change it and move forward. The issue I’ve noticed in my own life? Anger. No amount of prayer has abated it, nor has trying harder or smarter, as those who do not pray would advise. Some things we are given to work through over a short course and some last a lifetime. It is by grace I’m even aware it’s a problem and it is by that same grace I’m hopeful it will leave my heart stronger than it was before it made its unwelcome appearance.
Paul Tripp has a thought provoking DVD series on anger. He talks a lot about righteous anger and unrighteous anger and it is definitely the latter that’s my problem. Not that I don’t get righteously angry, but that doesn’t cause me to sin against God and others. It’s the uglier one that gets me into trouble and makes me hate how I think and act towards those I love. In the series, Tripp made a comment about anger that has stuck with me over the last few years: When you’re angry, ask yourself what it is you think you deserve and are not getting in that moment. What is it that I think I deserve? That can be any number of things given the circumstances – eight hours of sleep, more coffee, a trip to the bathroom by myself, a shirt that hasn’t been pizza sauced by my kid, etc. – but Tripp boils it down to one simple truth: The thing I ultimately want is to be the king over my own life.
As a believer, I know that Jesus is the king of my life and orchestrates all of it according to his good purposes. There is nothing that happens that is not under his sovereign control. So why am I angry? There is nothing that he gives me that is not for my good. There is not one single thing that happens throughout my day that is not from his hand. He owes me nothing, and yet he gives me everything that is best for me. Yet, I still get angry, and much of the time over the past few years, it has been a reaction to Zeke’s behavior, such as his refusal to sleep or refusal to eat or his monumental rages when he doesn’t get his way.
Watching a child rage is intense. Many people think we are just talking about a normal toddler / preschooler tantrum, until they have witnessed it for themselves. It’s 45 minutes to an hour of full on screaming, kicking, hitting, throwing anything in sight and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. The more we try to calm him, the more agitated he becomes. He literally cannot control his emotions or behavior during a rage and there is no rhyme or reason to what might bring it on. Sometimes we patiently endure them and pray they’ll stop. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I shut down – shut out – wish he wasn’t mine to deal with because he’s ruining another day of my life. Completely irrational thoughts from someone who should know better. Someone who understands it is his brain that is broken. Someone that is supposed to love him without limit. But all there is in those moments is anger. And I’ve realized it blazes hotter in my heart if the entire mall or airplane or park gets to watch his escapades.
Why is that? I am positive it is because I have an idol. To paraphrase Tim Keller, that thing which causes your emotions to spin most out of control is your idol. If I’m angry because my permanently brain damaged child cannot understand that the door to the bathroom in Target needs to stay closed and constantly opens it while I’m on the toilet, while screaming his head off because I tell him to shut the door again and again and again, I have bigger issues than someone seeing something they’ve already seen a hundred times. If I carry that anger with me to the car and on the ride home and for the next half hour, I have bigger problems than the people who heard his tantrum and judged my parenting (if those people even exist). I have a really big idol: pride. Ugly, ugly pride.
Pride says I need to protect my image and prove to others that I can do this thing called life just fine, thank you. Of course, the ironic reality is, when I seek to protect myself in that way, the root issue I’m dealing with is fear. But what am I afraid of? That someone might think I’m not the world’s most perfect parent? That someone might think I don’t have any clue what I’m doing with this out of control child? That someone might actually handle the situation much better than I did or ever could? Ultimately, I’m afraid I’m not measuring up and I never will.
All those things I imagine others to be thinking very well may be true, but the larger truth is, they do not make me any less perfect in the sight of God. Any less righteous. Any less beloved. They could not, because when Christ saves us, he saves us to the uttermost – through and through. We have nothing left to prove. In fact, we had nothing to prove to begin with. The Bible says we were dead in our sins and dead people cannot prove their worth. It was all God. And above that, it was all God before we were even born. Before the world existed. When it was just God the Father and the Son and the Spirit. He had a plan for us, for me. He foreknew it all. Romans 8:30 says he predestined those he loved and he called them and he saved them – he justified them – he is sanctifying them and he will ultimately glorify them. It is all his plan and I had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Because this is true of me and all those he has saved, I have nothing else to prove to make myself any better in his sight. And if I have nothing else to prove to be righteous before him, why one earth do I care if the lady in Target thinks I’m a complete moron? I should not care. But I do because my theology doesn’t play out in my reality.
So, theology matters. If I really live what I say I believe, how will that look in how I reflect Jesus to my kids? Will they see me more broken before I have to apologize for being angry with them? Will they see me on my knees praying for strength to get through one more day before they hear me being short with them at the end of that day? How will it look if we all live out what we say we believe? Will we be more honest and open? Will we stop trying to hide what’s really going on at home with our spouses and kids and in-laws? Will we talk about how hard – how incredibly, gut-wrenchingly hard – this life is sometimes and be more transparent and genuine? I think so, because if we really believe we had nothing to do with our salvation, we understand that we are in the exact same position as everyone else in the body of Christ. It was not our morally good decisions that got us here; it was grace. Pure grace. And that grace is what I depend on to give me the ability to keep fighting against the sin that remains, the anger, the pride and the fear.
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