Losing It: 3 steps to conquering your anger and becoming a happier mom (Pathfinder Parenting)

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We all know what it looks like when weeds take over a flower bed—they can strangle the pretty flowers and leave a wasteland in its place. But simply “cutting back” the weeds doesn’t actually get rid of your problem. The weeds come back with a vengeance, and it’s like you never tried to remove them in the first place.

Just like weeds, anger can choke the spirit of your family, but it’s not good enough to merely learn how to “take a deep breath and count to 10.” If you’ve ever flown off the handle or yelled at your kids, you know it happens in a heartbeat. And that’s why you can’t just “manage” your anger—you have to pull it out by the roots.

Lessons

Sinful Anger: It’s worse than you think*

Why do we get angry so easily? One of the reasons is because, deep down, we intuitively understand there is a good place for anger in the world. We are made in the image of a God who is slow to anger—a God who understands that sometimes anger is the most loving response we can have for the victims of evil. The problem is there’s a big difference between godly anger and sinful anger.

Getting to the Root of Sinful Anger*

James 4:1-2 answers the question of why we get angry in the simplest terms: we get angry because we don’t get what we want. Anger comes about because there’s something we desire to such a degree, we are willing to punish those who get in our way of it.

Pulling Up Anger by the Root*

Seeing the root of anger is one thing. Pulling it up by the root—i.e. really repenting of anger—is another thing. But the key is really knowing the character of our Lord and learning how to run to him in the potentially angry moment.