Anger Management
I’m convinced that one of the reasons God gives us family is to teach us that we are not nearly as sanctified as we think. As I recall, before I married my wife I was almost completely sanctified. Then God gave me this wonderful gift called marriage and I suddenly realized that I was not nearly as holy as I once thought myself to be. It’s one thing to be sanctified when everyone in your family agrees with you (because you’re a family of one), but once you add another person to the mix it’s another story. After a few years of marriage Amy and I kind of figured each other out and resumed our positions of nearly perfect sanctification (or so we thought), until God gave us children…and life has never been the same.
The other day I was at home trying to get some work done when Micah completely lost it. We’ve always had a hard time with Micah when it comes to eating, but it seems that lately things have been especially difficult. He threw himself on the ground in a fit of rage and tears over the prospect of having to eat a bite of pizza (we have pretty low expectations of Micah right now when it comes to food, but pizza is where I draw the line). As I surveyed the situation I was honestly enraged. I immediately took Micah up to his room, disciplined him and slammed the door while he sat and thought about what he had just done to us.
One of the things that parenting has shown me is that I had no idea that I could become so angry over such small things. It’s not that Micah didn’t need to be disciplined, because he certainly did. But there is a big difference between disciplining out of anger over what’s been done and disciplining out of love and concern for the well being of your child. A few minutes later I went back into Micah’s room, apologized for my sin and asked his forgiveness for my anger.
James1:19-20 says, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires.” At the heart of sinful anger is a demand to be right and a demand for other people to meet your standards of righteousness. That’s why James reminds us that “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires.” You see in the end it doesn’t matter if Micah lives up to my standards or not, what matters is that he lives up to God’s standards which have already been met in Christ who took upon Himself the just wrath of His Father for sin. My job in parenting is not to hold Micah accountable to my standards, but rather to point him to his need of a Savior who has already satisfied the Father’s standards of perfect righteousness and then to rest in that righteousness which comes by faith.
July 12 2010 04:00 am | Devotional
Bernie Andringa on 13 Jul 2010 at 1:07 pm #
“As I recall, before I married my wife I was almost completely sanctified”. Sounds to me like a pretty compelling reason to remain single!