For the past eight days we have been having trouble with our Internet service. It has been a frustrating week as our service has been going in and out. Just before midnight, the other night, I finished the final edits to the next day’s post. As soon as I hit the “update” button the Internet went out and most all of the data was lost. It was not saved and I had no way of retrieving it.

I was very angry at my Internet provider!

Whenever you get angry with someone or something you are, in effect, giving that person or thing control over you. Your volitional choice to get angry allows the person or thing to control your thoughts, emotions, attitudes and behavior. In that moment of anger, you believe that person or thing has something you want and you become demanding until you get your craving satisfied.

The other night my Internet provider, though they did not know it, controlled me. They had something I had to have and anger was my way of showing how much they “owned me.” Not until I repented of my sin did they lose their control over me.

Therefore, an angry person is typically an insecure or fearful person. He is a person who says, “I need something from you and because I cannot get what I want, I will be angry with you.” Anger is a sinful response to get a craving met.

Anger is an insecure person’s manipulative method or tactic to get what he wants. – RLT

A Real Need

A person dying of thirst will do most anything, i.e. fight, in order to get a splattering of water to quench his thirst. At that moment in his life, the desire for water controls him. He feels insecure (fearful), and rightly so in this illustration, because he will die eventually without water. Therefore, he chooses to fight in order to quench that need.

A Sinful Need

When an infant does not get her way, she may choose anger as a tactic to get what she wants. She feels she “needs” something as well. This craving to get something turns to anger as a tactic to acquire the perceived need. Anger is a typical response for people who do not get their way. The infant’s desire to have the toy (she believes she “needs” it) is so great that she will succumb to the “power of another” (the power of the toy in this illustration) in order to get that desire quenched.

When we express anger toward another person, we are giving up our power or our strength, to the control of that person, until we get that perceived need met. This should be a motivating reason not to get angry with anyone. We should refuse to let whatever it is the other person has to dominate our thinking and emotions. The angry person is an idolator.

Self-control is the biblical response for a person who is tempted to give their control over to another. The way you walk in Spirit-empowered self-contorl is by repenting of whatever it is that you are craving.

Application Questions

1. What is it that you want so bad that you are willing to sin in order to get it?
2. What is it that you are not getting, that you are willing to sin in order to get it?

Other Related Articles

• To Be Angry is to Be A Puppet on a String, 1.0
• Angry People Have Way Too Many Needs, 2.0

Read these articles on the Fallacy of Mutual Need Meeting

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It was 1978. My dad had been dead for three days. He died at the age of 42. The layman’s diagnosis was that he drank himself to death.

I was nineteen.

I stopped attending church at 12 when my mother could not make me go anymore. Church was more about smoking marijuana with the deacon’s kids rather than learning about God. At 15 I left home and began living with my grandmother. That same year I was put in jail for five days for breaking and entering.

Anger, fear, hate and rebellion made up my childhood. By the time I was 19 there was little you could tell me. I was hurt and felt justified in my anger.

My dad began drinking when he was 21 and didn’t stop until he fell asleep that last time in bed in 1978. My employer brought me to my parent’s home just in time to see the EMS take him out, covered by a white sheet and on a gurney.

Death is the final equalizer that puts all sin into perspective

It was not supposed to happen that way. As my friend recently told me, “You still had some hat’in to do.” He was right.

I held on to my rights, my offenses and all the wrongs my dad did to me as a kid. I still had some hating to do.

Then he played a trick on me. He died.

I remember, like it was yesterday, the first time I ever told my father that I loved him. I was standing over his casket in McEwen Funeral Home in North Carolina. I walked up. I looked over. And there it dawned on me that I held on to my anger too long.

Yes, I was sinned against. I was hurt. I was abused verbally and physically as a kid. I could make a case against my dad. And I did.

I had more hat’in to do.

But he died.

Death is the final equalizer that puts all sin into perspective. I lived in regret for many years for being so stubbornly proud. At the end of the day my dad was no different than me.

• He was a sinner. I am a sinner.
• He sinned against me. I sinned against him.
• He made mistakes. I make mistakes.

But I am more: I’m a forgiven murderer. I killed Christ. Why can’t I forgive him?

And I did. I got no more hat’in to do. The Gospel makes sense of it all.

Read More Articles in this Series

• What Am I Missing When I Get Angry?
• My Brother Was Murdered Twelve Years Ago
• She Buried Her Second Son in Ten Years
• My Mother: An Enduring Testimony to the Grace of God
• Is There Hope For My Kid?
• My Husband Never Asks For Forgiveness. How Am I To Respond?
• The Power of UN-Forgiveness
• Inherent Liabilities in Counseling: When There is No Repentance
• I Got More Hating to Do

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Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

Free Counseling Advice via Weekly eBlast

Checkout Counseling Solution’s Membership Training Site

The easiest thing in the world for me to do is to get angry. And when I do, it can manifest as any of the following:

• Impatience
• Lack of forgiveness
• Frustration
• Gossip
• Criticalness
• Judging
• Unkindness
• Slander
• Silent treatment
• Harsh tones
• Rolling of the eyes
• Sinfully comparing myself to another
• Putting down another person

James asked the question, “What causes quarrels and what causes conflict?” Another way of asking the same question is, “What am I missing when I get angry?”

In a nutshell, it is Christ dying on the Cross for my sins. And when I forget this central truth of the bible, I am apt to become angry, which manifests itself in some of the ways above.

A clear picture of an angry man who forgot the Gospel is portrayed in Matthew 18:23-35.

But the good news is that a Christian who remembers the Gospel can inform his behavior with the following statements:

1. My greatest problem in life has been resolved at the Cross.
2. I have no reason to be angry with anyone because of God’s overwhelming kindness to me through the Cross.
3. Because of the power of the Gospel I can now overcome my anger.
4. It is easy to forgive others as I reflect on God’s forgiveness of me through the Cross.
5. The Gospel says I am guilty of killing Christ, therefore there is nothing that anyone can do to me that is worse than what I did to Him.
6. The Gospel says I was a murderer.
7. The Gospel says I am declared not guilty of murder.
8. Through the lens of the Gospel I am informed that I was the foremost sinner, but God showed mercy! (1 Timothy 1:15-16)

And because of the Father’s mercy to me through the Gospel, I now have the power of the Gospel in me so I can live in the good of the Gospel, which can look like the exact opposite of the list above:

• Patience toward others
• Readiness to forgive others when they disappoint me
• Contentment even when things don’t go my way
• A desire to “gossip” the Gospel
• Quick to point out the good in others
• Comparing the sins of others to the worst sin I know, which is my sin against Christ
• Kindness
• Telling others about the good things you see in others
• Quickness to reconcile
• Kind tones
• Self-control
• Realizing I’m always the one with the log in my eye and whatever others do, it is only a speck
• Building others up

Anger is a clear reminder that I have forgotten the Gospel.

This post is a response to a case study called Counseling the Un-Counsel-Able

• Case Study: A Frustrated Counselor Counseling Someone Who Won’t Change
• Having the Right Perspective On Someone Who Will Not Change
• Getting Comfortable as God’s Water Boy
• Two Reasons Why a Person Will Not Change
• Inherent Liabilities of Biblical Counseling

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Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

Free Counseling Advice via Weekly eBlast

Checkout Counseling Solution’s Membership Training Site

When I was a kid our sin options were limited. We did not have all the possibilities we did today. We could sin face-to-face or we could send a sinful letter or we could call someone up and let them have it.

Today things are different. We can use MySpace, Facebook, Texting, Email and Twitter. 

The hindrance on Twitter-Sinning is that you have to get it done in 140 characters or less. This can be a huge hindrance for those of us who like to sin big. 

Fortunately Gmail has come up with a little math test you can prompt your computer to give you before your email is sent. You can program your computer settings to pop up a simple math test you can take before your email is released. I think I’m going to get this.

I had a friend tell me that they have gotten into several sinful fights through texting with friends. They didn’t see this as a problem.

If you feel the need to sin against someone, let me encourage you to do it face-to-face. That’s the best way. I have found email to miss so much body language, real meaning and nuance. It also can be a cowardly way of rebuking.

As a pastor I have come home on several Sunday evenings from being out with friends and just before bed I would run through my emails to see if there were any emergency issues that needed to be dealt with only to find a stinging email from someone. With Monday being my day off, it was never something that I could let go. Reconciliation must always be pursued promptly and if someone has an issue with me on Sunday, then I can’t wait until Tuesday to respond.

Fractures in the body of Christ must be resolved. I’m not sure if you have ever struggled as I have with technological sinning, but just in case, let me encourage you to refrain and choose rather to go to your friend and have a conversation the good old fashion way: face-to-face.

Do your children ever speak to you in angry, disrespectful tones? Christian families, especially those in which children are home for most of the day, face episodes of frustration and anger. Lou Priolo deals with anger’s root causes, offering corrective advice from a biblical perspective. Pastor and radio teacher, John MacArthur, Jr. has said, “This …goes beyond the external manifestations of anger and deals with the internal source – the thoughts and intents of the heart. I know of no other … that addresses this problem with such practical and applicable biblical wisdom.”

Lou Priolo will be in Greenville, SC at North Hills Community Church on Friday night and Saturday morning, March 27 and 28th teaching his “Getting to the Heart of Anger” conference.

North Hills Community Church, 4952 Edwards Road, Taylors, SC 29687

Friday, March 27, 7 to 9:15PM and Saturday, March 28, 8:30 to 12 Noon

Register by March 20 (864-609-5321 OR EMAIL)

Here are some helpful resources on anger

An excellent sermon on anger can be found here: Cravings and Conflict by C. J. Mahaney

Blog Posts

• Anger’s Solution
• Cursing the Sun
• The Blessing of Being the Biggest Sinner in the Room
• Tossing Grenades: A Post Counseling Event
• Cheap Plates Can Help You Overcome Anger

A few years ago I was meeting with a man who was working through some anger issues. He told me the last counselor he went to told him to buy some cheap plates. The idea was when he felt anger rising inside he could throw the cheap plates into the fireplace. This would help him work off the steam. 

He said it was loud and took good aim. Sometimes the shards would ricochet off the mantle or the fireplace interior and land in the living room or near someone. It was hard for him to control his aim when he couldn’t control his anger. 

After a few months it became too expensive.

You may think I’m kidding. I’m not. This is a true story. 

The psychologist was working under the assumption that anger was more about a hydraulic effect than a sin issue. The hydraulic effect is similar to the boiling water idea. It is believed by some that anger rises from inside an individual and the best way to overcome the anger is to give it ventilation. This psychologist taught that throwing cheap plates into a fireplace would allow the individual to vent, not harm anyone and mysteriously overcome his anger.

It didn’t work.

There are many who hold to this belief and their descriptors of anger can lead one to believe this is the right approach. For example, 

• I was boiling mad. 
• You just need to let off steam.
• I have to get away from you or I’m going to explode.

These are metaphors that some will use in an attempt to describe how they feel. Unfortunately the metaphor has evolved from a descriptor of how they feel to a diagnosis of what is going on. This is an unfortunate and inaccurate continuum of thought.

If it were true, then when I say, “My son loves to horseplay” you could conclude he needs to be put out to pasture. However, my descriptor is merely that and nothing more. It would be unreasonable to think my son should be treated like a horse.

Anger is not a person victimized by a physical hydraulic imposition.

Anger is a sinful response from a fearful person who is unwilling to trust God in the moment so they see no other recourse but to resort to manipulation to bring things back into their more comfortable and ordered universe.

Rather than being a victim to hydraulics where there is no hope you can repent of the real cause, which is sin. When I sin there is hope. When I’m victimized I can resort to throwing plates until this thing inside me decides to lower the pressure.

An excellent sermon on anger can be found here: Cravings and Conflict by C. J. Mahaney

In This Series

• Anger’s Solution
• Cursing the Sun
• The Blessing of Being the Biggest Sinner in the Room
• Tossing Grenades: A Post Counseling Event

I got in an argument with my wife. I was promoting my cause with conviction and impressive verbosity. In basketball it would be a slam dunk. In football, it would be a touchdown. In baseball, it would be a grand slam.

In reality, it was stupid.

I forgot the Gospel.

Actually, I didn’t forget the Gospel. Even while I was parading my “rightness” in the matter in front of my wife by slamming her with my air tight arguments, there was a still small voice going off in my head reminding me of the Gospel.

I thank God for the back traffic conversation he was having with me while I was flaunting my ignorance in front of my bride. It was the back traffic chat in the heat of the moment that was reminding me who the biggest sinner in the room really was.

Unfortunately, I forgot the four catholic nones. But God is kind. He reminded me of…

Romans 3:10-12 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (KJV)

The Gospel realigned my thinking. I am not righteous. I am not right. I am not better than my wife. I put Christ on the tree, therefore I have no right to act as though I’m righteous and she is not. Outside of the Cross of Christ I’m the chief of sinners.

A Gospel orientation levels the playing field. I repented. She forgave me and God is good!

(The word catholic means universal.)

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It is required in the counseling office for a counselee to be humble, vulnerable, transparent and honest if real change is to take place. Admittedly, change cannot happen without these Christian virtues.

However, these kinds of attitudes and behaviors can come with a risk. The liability of these biblical virtues happens if both partners are not on the same page as far as modeling these good traits.

At times, even if they are on the same page in the counseling office, they stop practicing these traits once they re-enter the chaos of their home life.

Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, one spouse may use the prior vulnerability of the other spouse against them. I call this grenade tossing. On occasion, after there has been Spirit-empowered humility and confession of personal sin in the counseling office, I ask the other spouse not to use this information against their mate once they get home.

Sadly in many cases grenade tossing begins shortly after they get home and, at times, before they get home. This has been a recurring disappointment in marriage counseling. A spouse finally comes to a place of hope and trust, so they begin to share certain personal failures on their part. This is wonderful. But when they get home there is still the residual effect of their sin working in the marriage and then something goes wrong. It is at that moment the other spouse reminds the guilty all they have done, particularly reminding the erring spouse of what was said during the time of humble confession during counseling.

Another way this has worked out has been when I have addressed someone’s personal sin patterns in the marriage. The wife, for example, feels justified because there is somebody else in the room that believes like her. And when she gets home she takes a “two against one” posture by letting her husband know how right she is because “Rick agrees with me!!”

This is unfortunate. Throwing a grenade at your spouse is never right no matter what they have done to you. Christ, again, is our example. He did not return sin for sin. Please read my post on how to respond when angered.

In such cases I remind the Grenade Launcher that if Christ held them to the same standard they are holding their spouse they also would not be able to stand. This is the irony of such sin: we cannot maintain the same standard that we are demanding our spouse to maintain. And this is the amazing thing about the gospel: the guilty are set free.

Dear Spouse: Stop being angry at your mate. Don’t hold your spouse to a standard that you cannot maintain yourself. This is the height of arrogance, hypocrisy, and self-righteousness. Set your spouse free by praying, encouraging, and motivating him/her toward change. Remember who has the log and who has the speck. Preach the Gospel to yourself before you pick up that grenade. (See Matthew 7:3-5)

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Are you ready for marriage? If you are already married, is your relationship with your spouse free from strife? There is a relational conflict awaiting you in your immediate future.

The message, Cravings and Conflict, is the best message I have heard on the subject of anger. I ask all the people I have the privilege to serve to listen to it. This is a core message for our counseling. Click on it here for a FREE download of this sermon: Cravings & Conflict

Verne Lundquist, one of my favorite theologians, was announcing the LSU v. Alabama football game for CBS Television. Nick Saban, the Alabama coach used to be the LSU coach. Nick was coming back to LSU to coach his new team against his old team. This was his first visit to LSU since leaving a few years back.

Needless to say the LSU fans were rowdy and vocal. Alabama was #1 in the country and Verne said, “There seems to be a psychological theory that behind the emotion of anger there is fear.” He continued about how angry the LSU fans were that Nick Saban would leave them and join a rival club. He also commented that underneath their anger was fear, for they realized that the Alabama Crimson Tide had the goods to whoop the LSU Tigers, which they did.

Verne was right! He was spot on! Angry people are fearful people. The underlying heart issue to anger is usually fear. Many times it would work out like this: they are afraid they are not going to get what they want. A kid who is passed over for ice cream screams out in anger. He’s afraid he will not get his favorite dessert.

We adults are the same way. When things are not going our way and we seemingly are unable to change the current course of events we are tempted to get angry. We are not getting our way.

Another way of looking at this would be to use the opposite word for “fear” which is “trust.” A fearing person is not a trusting person. One who is afraid is not trusting. The kid who is not getting his ice cream needs to trust that it is not the end of the world and God is in control of all things, even this.

A man who cannot change the current order of events needs to trust that all things will be okay. Another word for “trust” is “faith.” They are synonyms. 

Faith, trust and belief are essentially the same words. Therefore an angry person is a faithless person in that moment. He is a person with weak faith. At this point the argumentation has moved from “I’m not getting my ice cream” to “I have a problem with God.” My problem is less about not getting ice cream and more about why I am not resting and trusting in God. It is a faith issue. It is theologically rooted.

We have now traced our problem from the kitchen counter where the ice cream was not served to the prayer closet where I need to get alone with God and find out why I’m struggling to rest in him.

• Why isn’t God enough?
• Why can’t I trust in Him?
• Why do I get angry?

When you engage an angry person in counseling go ahead and assume he has a theological problem and that is the main thing you need to work on. There is a “crisis in faith” working at some level in his heart. When you engage an angry man in your kitchen go ahead and have pity on him, but recognize his real need rather than retaliating with similar anger. If you do the latter then you are like him in that you are not trusting God in the crisis.

Verne was right! You can learn a lot from watching football.