Dealing with a Hot Temper // How to Deal with Anger, Part 3

Every now and then – we all throw a temper tantrum. And so often it's over the craziest little things. A hot temper isn't a good look. So – how do you deal with it? How can you conquer it? Now when we're bringing up children we expect them to have temper tantrums. They're never fun of course but a temper tantrum is part of growing up. It's a part of the process of moving from immaturity to maturity, of discovering how to exercise the responsibilities that come with new freedoms and that's why I believe Gods plan is to put children into loving families so that mum and dad who are more mature and who love the child are there to guide the child through that growing process and the love bit helps us to absorb the pain and the inconvenience of the tantrums along the way. It's something that I think none of us really appreciate until we become parents ourselves. Now temper tantrums are par for the course for a child or a teenager but what about an adult, what about a person who is supposed to have matured and learned how to control their emotions? And when you or I have a temper tantrum do we just shrug our shoulders and say, "oh well' or is it something we need to deal with?" We've all been there haven't we? Having our little temper tantrum and 99% of the time they're over silly little things. If we were truly honest with ourselves we'd stand back and say, "well, that was dumb wasn't it? Why did I bite my wife's head off over something small? Why did I snap at my husband because of this tiny little thing?" For me it's the fact that I'm a perfectionist, it's just the way I am, it was the way I was brought up. Our school motto was "Age quod agis" which means "whatever you do, do well" or "if it's worth doing it's worth doing properly". So I always fold and hang the bath towels perfectly, when I'm dusting I pick up things on the shelf and dust under them instead of dusting around them, I'm always on time and normally five minutes early, I always put the milk back exactly the same spot in the fridge not in a different place, the knives in the knife block, each one has to be in its place. When you're a person like that God is going to make absolutely sure that He puts you in a family and into a work place into a Church where there's at least one person who's completely at the opposite end of the spectrum. Someone who's not neat and tidy, someone who's not always on time. It's an absolute dead certainty that God's going to do that. And it doesn't matter what personality type we are He's always going to make sure that we rub up against someone who's different and that is sometimes going to drive us nuts if we let it. That's where so many people have their temper tantrums, right in that place of difference. Instead of standing back and realising those differences we just react like Pavlov's dogs, stimulus: response, stimulus: response, stimulus: response. It's a vicious cycle that leads to anger and temper tantrums. Someone does something that flicks our switch off we go with this temper tantrum. I wonder if you can relate to this. My daughter Melissa works part time on a check-out in a large department store and every time she comes home at least one customer had to have a temper tantrum at the counter over something. Let's get a revelation today; we live in an imperfect world full of imperfect people who are going to do imperfect things. At the department store, on the road, at work, at home, at Church, everywhere we go. And we can either have temper tantrums or decide, you know something I actually want to have some peace in my life. I want to enjoy my life and you know something other people's failures are not going to rob me of that peace. Other people falling short of my expectations are not going to rob me of that peace. You know something we want everyone to be just like us, we want everyone to see the world just the way we see the world and it's never going to be like that. There's a wonderful little Proverb, if you want to read it it's in the Old Testament Proverbs chapter 29, verse 22: An angry man stirs up dissention and a hot-tempered one commits many sins. If we have a bit of a temper maybe today's the day we need to admit that and it's time to deal with it. It's time to get things into perspective. You see those little things that we get upset about 99.9% of them just don't matter, really they don't. I need this perhaps even more than you do. Temper tantrums are a sure sign that we need to do some growing up. I tell you something God wants three things for our lives, a deep relationship with Him, the deep joy that comes from that relationship and for that relationship to bear good fruit in our lives, fruit that other people can be blessed through. It's how He works, that's how Gods economy runs and temper tantrums are a sure sign we haven't come to grips with the main currency of that economy, the currency of grace. There's another Proverb, Proverbs chapter 16, verse 32: Better a patient man than...