The Answer to Anger by June Hunt

Author:June Hunt
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780736949316
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers

Shannon:

“I am a terrible person because of what I did.”

Gary:

“I ask God to forgive me and show me how I can make amends.”

Shannon:

“No amount of punishment can repay what I owe.”

Gary:

“I have a lot to learn from my mistakes.”

Shannon:

“If I were a good person, my mistakes would never have happened in the first place.”

You can easily see that proper feelings of guilt open the door for repentance, restoration, and right living.

Shame, on the other hand, leads only to more shame—with no way out—and leaves you with a lifetime of self-loathing.

Eventually shame makes you angry at yourself for failing so miserably and you feel unworthy of God’s love. In fact, shame and anger go hand in hand, beginning in earliest childhood.

Shame generates a cycle of anger, whether we receive it from someone else—a teacher, parent, spouse, or boss—or mercilessly heap it on ourselves. Most important of all, anger you direct inward rarely stays there—it eventually surges to the surface.

Lily learned these things the hard way. In letting her guilt turn to shame, she lit the fuse on a volatile bomb of anger aimed at herself but it inadvertently landed on innocent bystanders.

The apostle John said, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”1 If shame is the source of your anger, own up to your guilt, agree with God that you are forgiven, and then…let it go!

2. Perfectionist Patty

Someone once remarked, “Perfectionists are the only people on earth who fail 100 percent of the time.” At first glance, this statement seems absurd. After all, no group of people works harder at success than perfectionists. They take pride in their high standards and never rest in the quest for excellence.

Failure? Not an option for the perfectionist.

But look again, and you’ll see a tragic truth in the statement. By definition, perfectionism is a pattern of thinking that demands all areas of life be flawless. Anything less than perfect is unacceptable.

Take Perfectionist Patty, who never accomplishes precisely what she sets out to do. Why? Because flawless perfection in this world is simply unattainable. It can’t be had at any price. Her achievements may be excellent or optimal—but they are never always perfect. Therefore, she can’t help but feel like a failure.

If Perfectionist Patty fails to understand the pitfalls of perfectionism, she is doomed to spend her life running ever harder and faster to win a prize that doesn’t exist. No matter what she achieves, it will never be good enough.

And that is a ticking time bomb—one on the verge of detonating from unavoidable repeated defeat.

Of course, if you are a demanding perfectionist, who are you most likely to blame for your constant frustration and failure? That’s right—yourself! You’ll conclude you simply are a failure, and you imagine God judging you as harshly as you judge yourself. And then you become consumed by your own self-diagnosed insufficiency.

But let’s be clear: God doesn’t share our illusions of human perfection. He knows better than anyone that His children are a work in progress and always will be.

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