Have you ever had a dream where you wake up in the same emotional state that you were in your dream? It might be sadness, anger, guilt, frustration, or any of the other wide range of emotions we experience. Last night I had a dream and when I woke up I was infuriated. Not everyone has dreams the same way I do but when I dream they are almost always realistic, to the point that sometimes it can be hard for me to decipher if something actually happened or if I just dreamed it. I have had dreams where I spend an entire seemingly normal day at work (riveting I know). This dream was another one of the realistic dreams.
In my dream, my wife and I were mistreated by a Christian organization that we were a part of (this organization does not actually exist or the other people in the dream). They had passed unchristian-like judgment and punishment on my wife and my blood was boiling. They took what should have been a great thing and turned it into a scarlet letter. When I woke up this morning I was still angry at these fictional people and this fictional situation. I began to pray about it and God reminded me of some hard lessons I had learned (and sometimes need to relearn) when I was running my previous business.
I was very involved in the day to day operations for most of my previous business’ life. There was one day that really stuck with me and helped change me in regards to anger. We were in a rough patch with the business. Even though things were busy we were not doing well financially and it felt like we were bleeding money. There was this one job we had going in process and we had been patiently waiting for one of the key components to come in. A day after it was scheduled to arrive I called the company that we had purchased it from and they advised it had already been delivered and it had even been delivered early. I had the person in charge of receiving orders double check to see if they had it somewhere but it could not be found. We ordered another one and the job sat on hold for another week while we waited for it to come in. About the time the job was nearing completion I was helping to clean up the receiving area and low and behold there was the missing part. It had been opened and the package discarded. Now this isn’t some $20 piece but if I remember correctly it was around $550 cost. I grabbed the part and ran over to where the job was being worked on hoping that the packaging for the second part might still be available for us to use to return the first part. Of course the packaging was gone and there I was holding a $550 piece of scrap metal. My anger erupted and I slammed the component onto the ground and then stomped on it for good measure. Even as I am writing this I can’t help but think what a pathetic way to have handled that situation.
The next day after I had calmed down and stopped crying over spilt milk, one of my team members came and wanted a private word. He pulled me to the side and brought up what had happened the day before. He told me it really affected him and he couldn’t stop thinking about it all night. His previous employer often had fits of anger and acted like that on a pretty consistent basis and he constantly lived in fear of what might happen on any given day. He didn’t want to be around that type of environment and was a major reason why he wanted to work with us. My heart dropped, I apologized personally to him and then to the rest of the team and I began to realize how anger had pushed me into being someone that God did not intend for me to be.
As I continued to reflect on my dream and that prior life experience I felt God pushing me to reflect on what his word says about anger. I was reminded of James 1:20,” Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires”. That verse really stings when I think about my past actions in that situation. Knowing that God desires us to be righteous will hopefully cause us to take our actions a little more seriously. But outbursts of anger rarely start out at a singular point. In my own experiences it usually builds up over time like a pot of tea on the stove erupting when it reaches its boiling point.
So how do we stop from getting to that point? How do we take the kettle off of the stove? We catch anger before it even starts. Ephesians 4:27 warns us what a little anger might do “ for anger gives a foothold to the devil”, so we have to stop it right at the start. That sounds a lot easier said than done. Some of you are probably thinking that you have the right to be angry or that your circumstances are different. I hate to break it to you but we don’t. When you feel that anger setting in, that is the time to take action and I don’t mean revenge. Proverbs 20:22 warns, ”Don’t say, ”I will get even for this wrong.” Wait for the Lord to handle this matter”. The action I am recommending is to take your anger to God in prayer.
Believe it or not, God wants you to talk to him about these things. How else could he reveal himself to you through these situations. God already knows what is going on but expressing how you feel to him is a sign of a mature relationship. Oftentimes God will take that anger and turn it into gratitude. Next time you are mad at someone or a situation try being grateful instead and see how God works through that situation. You might be surprised how irrelevant that problem or situation was. You might even grow from it.
For each of us it might be a little different but for me I know this is something I have to be conscientious about. I hope this article helps you and gives you a starting place next time anger starts to creep in and always remember that Gods’ love is not conditional but is unconditional and he longs to be a part of your everyday life.
