This week we’ve been talking about how Love is Not Easily Angered. Sometimes we’re impatient, or selfish, or we just don’t love like we should. This results in us being easily angered, offended, or provoked. It may feel difficult, but with the Holy Spirit’s guidance, some exercises in thankfulness, and focusing on the positive traits in the offender, we can usually get past them. But then there are those little things that happen which cause a reaction in us much BIGGER than was warranted. Sometimes, we’re just too sensitive, but other times, there is more going on.
A friend of mine was recently spilling her guts about some things her mom did that totally bugged her. It was driving her crazy. She was upset. She complained about every little thing her mom said, didn’t say, did, didn’t do. From my perspective, the things her mom did weren’t that big of a deal, but the situation was actually causing her a great deal of pain. As we talked, she mentioned a big fight they had a few years ago, which was never really resolved. Bingo. Guess what my friend is dealing with? A wound that never healed.
Sometimes when we’re offended, it hits a deep and painful wound that hasn’t healed yet. Something small could translate to us as a huge offense, “hitting a nerve” so to speak, because we’re actually wounded and bleeding and usually, we don’t even know it.
When we’re initially wounded, we tend to “get over” the pain without actually dealing with it. You know the old saying, “time heals all wounds”? Well, I think there is a chance some minor wounds will heal by themselves over time, but in a large wound situation, we need to be involved in the healing process. Ignoring this type of wound does not make it go away. You may, however, forget about it for a time. Think about it like back pain. People who live with back pain can generally function at a normal level. They have a mild amount of pain every day, but they just live with it. They get used to it. But then they go to lift that box, or kick that ball, and BAM, the wound has brought itself to the surface. "Remember me?" it asks. It never really healed. It just went behind the scenes for a while.
This happens with our deep emotional wounds, too. We don’t really know how to get through them. We let them scar a bit, and as long as they’re not bleeding everywhere and on everyone, we move on. But God loves us too much to let these wounds go unnoticed. God uses people and circumstances in our lives to remind us of the wounds that aren’t healed yet. He loves us, and wants the best for us, and doesn’t want us to live forever with the same wounds. He is the Perfect Healer, the Doctor for our souls. But remember, He is also patient, so He will allow you to hold on to your wounds again and again. He will wait, scalpel ready, for us to say, “Doc, you’ve gotta do something here. This hurts too much, and too often. I’m ready.” Until then, He’ll allow situations to remind us of the pain, all in the hopes that we will bring this pain to Him so He can help us truly heal.
As I deal this week with being impatient and easily angered, or easily brought to tears, I’m asking God to come in and heal the places that hurt too much. I don’t want to be easily offended, I want to walk in forgiveness and really love my God and the people around me.
Sometimes we don’t want to let God heal us, because we want to stay angry with someone. They really deserve it, don’t they? But remember, when we choose to walk in anger, we end up ourselves in chains.
I don’t want to be in chains. I want to be free. So I don’t want to walk in anger and pain, I want to walk in love and forgiveness.
Walking in love one week at a time.
Showing posts with label chains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chains. Show all posts
7/30/14
An Angry Dream
Last night I was studying the original Greek for this text and looking up verses trying to find another angle to write about. The best biblical translation I found was “is not easily provoked”. But more in depth study brought me to an interesting definition for this Greek word “provoke”. It has more feeling to it than just being annoyed or impatient. The word itself was defined like this: to arouse anger, provoke, irritate, to incite ("jab") someone and stimulate their feelings, become emotionally provoked (upset, roused to anger), getting to someone, spurring someone to action.
Spurring someone to action. Our anger does spur us into action, doesn’t it? Anger can make us want to punch something, yell loudly, leave, or if you're like me, you’ll cry (and maybe do those other things too.)
I wrote down all the things I studied, but then walked away and asked God to give me some kind of revelation about what it means that Love is Not Easily Angered. Here’s what happened:
I had one of those dreams that was so intense I still believed it to be true even after I woke up. In my dream, my husband was being a total jerk. My children and I were being attacked and instead of helping us, he acted like I was overreacting. We kept fighting and fighting and he was just so obviously wrong. I was furious. I had every right to be. I might have even punched him in the face. I at least thought about it. I started wondering what was wrong with him. Eventually, I took our kids and left, and told him I didn’t want to hear from him until he was ready to apologize.
At this point I half woke up. I was so angry with him because it felt so real, I refused to roll over to hug him and let the relief of reality pour in. I decided to stay angry, and stay where I was in bed with my back to him. Somehow I was back in the dream, right where I had left him, and the ground began to make metallic clinking sounds. I looked down to see what it was, and realized... I was in chains.
God spoke immediately to my heart: “THIS IS THE RESULT OF CHOOSING ANGER.”
WHOA. I had every right to be angry, believe me, if I went into the details of the dream, you would agree. I was in the right. I could even go so far as to say I was “righteous.” My righteous anger was in full gear, protecting my children and everything that was good in the world. But when I decided to WALK in anger, instead of love, I found myself immediately in chains.
The bible says, “in your anger, do not sin.” (Ephesians 4:26) The actual emotion of anger itself is not a sin. It’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to be angry when someone hurts you. Even Jesus was angry a few times. But what are you going to do with it? You have a choice to make, to act in your anger and pain, or to act in Love. God allows us this choice, because without choice, there would be no true love. If we choose incorrectly, we set out to punish the person who caused our pain, but instead, we punish ourselves. We lock ourselves into chains that immobilize us and keep us living in fear, far from love.
I do NOT want to live in chains. The good news is that God doesn’t want me to either.
He’s rooting for me. He’s rooting for you. He’s there to show us how to walk in Love, even when we’re hurt and angry.
This is tough. It goes against our human nature. There is a part of us that doesn’t want to be taken advantage of, or to let things go, or to forgive. We believe that if we do, we’ll be teaching people they can constantly sin against us. If someone hurts me, I have to punish them, rebuke them, convict them so that they learn not to do it anymore. We fear that if we love people the way God calls us to, our lives will be worse and we’ll be in constant pain. So we do not love, because…we fear those things.
The reason we believe this is because, I think, it’s partly true. BUT God calls us to walk this way anyway. Think about it. Jesus could have lived differently on earth. He could have followed the law like the Pharisees instead of following the Love of the Father. But He chose love. He understood the HEART of the law, because He understood the Father, and He walked according to what the law was actually about...Love. This drove the religious people crazy. He chose Love, so He suffered and died for it.
It’s possible that some of our choosing Love may actually cause us pain. We may suffer for it. But I’m certain in the New Testament Jesus says a few times that we will need to take up our own cross. He promises some tough stuff for those who walk in the truth, doesn’t He?
The other side of it is that, this fear isn’t based entirely on truth. We can not “convict” other people for the pain they cause us. Only the Holy Spirit can convict a heart. When we think we’re “convicting” or “helping”, usually we’re rebuking and judging. Mostly, this pushes someone farther away, because we’re not being loving, and they know it. So in actuality, the only way to stop this vicious cycle is by loving someone, praying for them, and allowing the Holy Spirit to do the work in their hearts that will show them how to love better. Eventually they may love you in such a way that it doesn’t hurt anymore.
We are afraid that when the bible says "Love COVERS sin" (also called grace), it means that "Love ACCEPTS sin" (also called tolerance), but this is NOT the case. Accepting sin and saying it's okay based on a “tolerance” outlook is not the same as covering sin based in love. We’ll talk more about this next week.
We’ve talked about fear. We know we need to choose to live in love and not fear. James gave us a really great way to walk in this when he said in his letter, “perfect love casts out all fear.” If I take up my cross, and give up all my “rights” and start walking in love, my fear of being hurt and taken advantage of will start to fade away. If I really walk in love, I won’t be able to walk in fear. I’ll have to let it all go, because I’ve chosen the Way of Love, and Love casts out fear. Then, when I'm really loving God and those around me, I might encourage them to do the same.
**I feel the need to point out that if you're in an abusive situation, I'm not encouraging you to cover someone else's sin to the point of your physical detriment. You can love and give grace from a distance when safety is at stake.**
Spurring someone to action. Our anger does spur us into action, doesn’t it? Anger can make us want to punch something, yell loudly, leave, or if you're like me, you’ll cry (and maybe do those other things too.)
I wrote down all the things I studied, but then walked away and asked God to give me some kind of revelation about what it means that Love is Not Easily Angered. Here’s what happened:
I had one of those dreams that was so intense I still believed it to be true even after I woke up. In my dream, my husband was being a total jerk. My children and I were being attacked and instead of helping us, he acted like I was overreacting. We kept fighting and fighting and he was just so obviously wrong. I was furious. I had every right to be. I might have even punched him in the face. I at least thought about it. I started wondering what was wrong with him. Eventually, I took our kids and left, and told him I didn’t want to hear from him until he was ready to apologize.
At this point I half woke up. I was so angry with him because it felt so real, I refused to roll over to hug him and let the relief of reality pour in. I decided to stay angry, and stay where I was in bed with my back to him. Somehow I was back in the dream, right where I had left him, and the ground began to make metallic clinking sounds. I looked down to see what it was, and realized... I was in chains.
God spoke immediately to my heart: “THIS IS THE RESULT OF CHOOSING ANGER.”
WHOA. I had every right to be angry, believe me, if I went into the details of the dream, you would agree. I was in the right. I could even go so far as to say I was “righteous.” My righteous anger was in full gear, protecting my children and everything that was good in the world. But when I decided to WALK in anger, instead of love, I found myself immediately in chains.
The bible says, “in your anger, do not sin.” (Ephesians 4:26) The actual emotion of anger itself is not a sin. It’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to be angry when someone hurts you. Even Jesus was angry a few times. But what are you going to do with it? You have a choice to make, to act in your anger and pain, or to act in Love. God allows us this choice, because without choice, there would be no true love. If we choose incorrectly, we set out to punish the person who caused our pain, but instead, we punish ourselves. We lock ourselves into chains that immobilize us and keep us living in fear, far from love.
I do NOT want to live in chains. The good news is that God doesn’t want me to either.
He’s rooting for me. He’s rooting for you. He’s there to show us how to walk in Love, even when we’re hurt and angry.
This is tough. It goes against our human nature. There is a part of us that doesn’t want to be taken advantage of, or to let things go, or to forgive. We believe that if we do, we’ll be teaching people they can constantly sin against us. If someone hurts me, I have to punish them, rebuke them, convict them so that they learn not to do it anymore. We fear that if we love people the way God calls us to, our lives will be worse and we’ll be in constant pain. So we do not love, because…we fear those things.
The reason we believe this is because, I think, it’s partly true. BUT God calls us to walk this way anyway. Think about it. Jesus could have lived differently on earth. He could have followed the law like the Pharisees instead of following the Love of the Father. But He chose love. He understood the HEART of the law, because He understood the Father, and He walked according to what the law was actually about...Love. This drove the religious people crazy. He chose Love, so He suffered and died for it.
It’s possible that some of our choosing Love may actually cause us pain. We may suffer for it. But I’m certain in the New Testament Jesus says a few times that we will need to take up our own cross. He promises some tough stuff for those who walk in the truth, doesn’t He?
The other side of it is that, this fear isn’t based entirely on truth. We can not “convict” other people for the pain they cause us. Only the Holy Spirit can convict a heart. When we think we’re “convicting” or “helping”, usually we’re rebuking and judging. Mostly, this pushes someone farther away, because we’re not being loving, and they know it. So in actuality, the only way to stop this vicious cycle is by loving someone, praying for them, and allowing the Holy Spirit to do the work in their hearts that will show them how to love better. Eventually they may love you in such a way that it doesn’t hurt anymore.
We are afraid that when the bible says "Love COVERS sin" (also called grace), it means that "Love ACCEPTS sin" (also called tolerance), but this is NOT the case. Accepting sin and saying it's okay based on a “tolerance” outlook is not the same as covering sin based in love. We’ll talk more about this next week.
We’ve talked about fear. We know we need to choose to live in love and not fear. James gave us a really great way to walk in this when he said in his letter, “perfect love casts out all fear.” If I take up my cross, and give up all my “rights” and start walking in love, my fear of being hurt and taken advantage of will start to fade away. If I really walk in love, I won’t be able to walk in fear. I’ll have to let it all go, because I’ve chosen the Way of Love, and Love casts out fear. Then, when I'm really loving God and those around me, I might encourage them to do the same.
**I feel the need to point out that if you're in an abusive situation, I'm not encouraging you to cover someone else's sin to the point of your physical detriment. You can love and give grace from a distance when safety is at stake.**
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