Faith Filled Family Magazine November 2016 | Page 21

something very powerful.

g Emotions

you control them?
BY CHRIS BENTON

Now, let’s explore what happens
if the anger goes unchecked.
This will destroy you and everything around you. It will create
so much turmoil inside you that
people won’t want to be around
you. This kind of anger has to be
checked and let go of, because
as long as you hold on to this
kind of anger, it will creep into
every area of your life. When
that happens the day will come
when you totally self-destruct. I
have been there so I know from
personal experience.
James 1:19-20New King James
Version (NKJV)

S

o what is anger and
why is it important?
Why is it bad? We all
start out in life with
very little anger and as life happens we become angrier at the
world and ourselves. The good
part is that sometimes anger
can spur us to take more action
than we normally would. For example, sometimes you can get
angry or disgusted with how
your life is going so you decide
to finally make some changes.
Many times we won’t change until this happens. As I have always
heard, people don’t change until
staying the same is more painful
than changing. Isn’t that so true?
I am not sure why we as humans
do that but, for the most part, we
do. In that sense, anger and disgust are positive because they
allow us to make some changes.
It is also positive that we see
things in society that we know
just aren’t right so we stand up

to fight against the injustice.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said,
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to
justice everywhere”.
MLK was very right on that. He
fought and I’m sure deep down
he was angry. He showed his
anger by being willing to fight for
injustice. We all have seen injustice in our everyday lives. Maybe
we or someone we know has
gone through one. Maybe we
look at child slaves and wonder
how can we make a difference
there? Maybe we look at the
young generation and just feel
anger or disgust at how they are
being raised and we want to do
something about it? Either way
this kind of anger or disgust is
a very positive thing and we all
need to feel this emotion. Anger
can change a generation! Anger can turn something bad into

“So then,[a] my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to
hear, slow to speak, slow to
wrath; 20 for the wrath of man
does not produce the righteousness of God.”
The bible is very clear on what
anger can do to your life. In
James 1:20-20, he talks about
being slow to wrath because it
doesn’t produce. This is so true
because too much anger in you
will destroy you. You have to
learn to keep this in check.
I was angry for many years and
I was covering it up with my addictions. I didn’t realize this until I became sober, but a lot of
my life, even destroying my first
marriage came because of anger. I am not going to talk about
what got me here at this point,
but let’s just say I had a few injustices done to me when I was
younger. One day I may tell that
story but for now just know that I
was a very angry man for many
years.