Taking Responsibility for Your Anger

I want to continue by looking some more at what I am calling destructive anger and how to avoid falling into it.  My last post was a recap of the message from Sunday so be sure to look at it first if you weren't present.  One of the most subtle problems in helping people get a handle on their anger is how we often shift the blame away from ourselves when we lose control of our anger.  Did you ever find yourself saying any of the following?
"He/she/they made me so angry."
"I have the same anger as my mom/dad."
"You really know how to push my buttons."
"Whenever the PMS hits, I start freaking out."
"It's the booze that makes me this way."
"If only he/she/ they didn't ___________, I never would have blown up."

What do you see in common with each of those statements?  Each one makes it seem like I am a passive responder to what others are doing to me.  They turn me into a victim, or someone who is helpless when it comes to my anger.  But as we saw in the prior post, the Bible says we are active in choosing to respond in anger.  It isn't some uncontrollable emotion or force that is caused by those around me.  That is blame shifting.  It's turning the people around you into scapegoats for a problem that lies within your heart.

The main point of our first post is that anger is a problem of your heart, not of the people and situations around you.  Once you understand this truth, the next step is to become aware of how you blame shift and start taking responsibility for how you chose to respond.  Remember what James tells us in 4:1-3:
What causes fights and quarrels among you?  Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?  You want something but don't get it.  You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want.  You quarrel and fight.  You do not have, because you do not ask God.  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.  
Notice how James puts the responsibility squarely on you.  It is "your desires"  that battle "within you."  "You want… you kill and covet, you quarrel and fight, you do not ask God, you ask with wrong motives, your pleasures."  Who's to blame for your outbursts of anger?  YOU ARE!

I also get the sense from these verses that the angry person is very arrogant, full of themselves.  And so James shifts from the horizontal dimension of how I relate to others to the vertical dimension of how I relate to God.  It starts in verse 3 and continues through verse 10.  Read through them and ask yourself these questions:
Is God my friend, and how close am I to Him?
Am I living with a spirit of envy or contentment?
Do I grieve over my anger and how it has hurt others?
Have I asked God to forgive me for my destructive anger?
If not, how is pride keeping me from seeking His grace and submitting to His authority?
As James implores us, take time now to seek the Lord, acknowledge your responsibility for your anger, seek His forgiveness, and commit to submitting yourself to Him.

Blessings,
Dr. Paul