Wednesday, September 21, 2011

don't let the sun go down on your anger

Anger. It's so infuriating.

Here's what really pisses me off about anger. Say something hurts your feelings. It takes literally 0.00000000000000001 seconds for that insult (plus or minus air quotes) to make you angry. Then, you start the inevitable ping pong match in your mind of determining if it is legitimate enough to be brought up to the person. You tell God to make the anger go away, you try to put it out of your mind. Then you think that you should bring it up to them. But something stops you. Maybe circumstances. Maybe God. Maybe something inside you that says "Hey, this was a legitimate hurt. They deserve to suffer for it, don't just forgive them right away." Because how many of us have ever had a conversation with someone about something they did that hurt you and you walked away even more angry? Rare (though I'm sure it happens). So if you bring up, it gets resolved then and there. And you deserve to harbor that anger for a while, I mean YOU'RE the victim after all. So you start working on this conversation you promise you'll have eventually, just not right now. Then, all these issues that you thought you had given to God and/or gotten over start coming to mind again. And you have to, yet again, determine if they're worth bringing up or you're just being petty (as we've determined you are capable of being). There comes another ping pong match, between feeling silly about being still angry about this stupid little quirk and all the little things they do that annoy you mounting up into this Voltron of a problem where you're wondering if they even care about you. Then, you get into that unstable balance of deciding you're probably, most likely going to have the conversation. But, you start thinking, "hey, I've been giving them the silent treatment this whole time, why haven't THEY come to talk to ME? Why do I always have to be the mature one?" And that pity party, my friends, is crippling. You long for someone to approach you, without provocation or prompting and just say "I hurt you and I'm sorry." I wonder if it ever gets any easier.
We talked at homegroup tonight about people that live their lives for themselves and give their lives to Christ on their deathbed. But in all honesty, I much rather envy the ones who believe in Christ but don't care if they live up to the way He desires all Christians to live and behave. It so much easier than really pursuing change in your life through the power of Christ. But as the saying goes, "it's simple, it ain't easy."
I realize this blog reveals some ugly things about me. I'm hoping you can relate, and if not, not think any lesser of me. I'm just being honest.