In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. Psalm 4:4
Yeah. Counting to ten? Probably not gonna work.
The default question most people ask about anger is “What.” What triggered my anger? But what is reallly not a good question. It’s too easy! It’s too general! It’s not that helpful. The stuff that triggers anger can be anything--bad music, a dirty room, traffic, rudeness, not flushing the toilet, deleted a recorded TV show, whatever. Who cares? Down deep we know that really, asking what isn't going to get at the problem.
So instead of asking, “What?” Ask, “Why?” Why forces you to peel back a layer and look inside your heart. Why did that trigger my anger? Chances are, asking why will help you discover one of two primary emotions hiding in a corner of your soul: one in the fetal position and one in the attack position.
All curled up in the fetal position is fear, the fearful me. Fearful me expresses her anger because she is afraid she isn’t a good person or friend, afraid of failure or rejection, afraid that she can’t control others to compliance, and so on.
The second emotion is hurt. Hurt hides right next to fear but like a wounded animal, hurt is very dangerous because all it knows how to do is attack others. If I hurt you with my anger, I don’t have to focus on the hurt I feel or reopen the hurtful wounds I’ve never dealt with.
If we don’t learn where anger is coming from, it keeps coming back out, over and over. Maybe that's why this Bible verse says to “search our hearts.” If you want to slay the dragon of anger, search your heart. Ask the right question. Learn from your emotions. Change your behavior. Improve your relationships. Easy? No. Doable? Si.
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