Thursday, September 18, 2008

An Age of Rage

Not too long ago, I was reading an article that described the culture that we are living in as "an age of rage." Apparently, one in seven of us are right now on the verge of exploding in an act of rage.
At his moment, I am sitting in a room filled with 27 people...that means that roughly four of us may be ready to blow our top when pushed.
I guess I better be careful!

Most people recommend that people who struggle with anger issues receive "anger management" treament.

Is that the best we can do? Manage our anger?

I believe that we can experience healing for our anger. One of the keys to this experience of healing is this: refuse to presume someone else's motive.
We are often really ticked at someone because we have played out the whole scenario and we assume that we know exactly why someone treated us badly.

Train yourself not to presume motive. You can never really know someone else's heart.

But the best key to anger healing is this: real forgiveness. It's not emotional...it's doing what you know is right regardless of how you feel. It's always harder than the sermons make it out to be...you will be miserable before you are free. But once you push through as an act of your will...you can be healed of anger!