The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Angry as Hell

Episode Date: January 9, 2017

Jeff shares a story of a frightening encounter with an enraged driver and discusses how anger can make us unrecognizable. He then gives practical tips for dealing with anger in our everyday life so that we can treat others with charity and act as true disciples of Christ.

Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show. And welcome to The Jeff Kaven Show. I'm Jeff.

And thank you for taking some time to be with. me today and whether you're in your car at home or maybe you're even sick in bed and you're just listening to to the show, I want to welcome you and I hope that everything that we share is of some encouragement to you and adds kind of a bright light to your life. The show really focuses on topics as they come up from week to week, things that kind of get my attention and make me think. And I found out over the years as I travel and talk to people that the things that make me think and make me kind of stand back and say, boy, that's a major issue in my life. I'd like to go deeper into that are oftentimes the things that other people are thinking about, too.

And I think that today's show is no different. It's no different at all. What are we going to talk about? Well, we're going to talk about being angry as hell. Yep. That's exactly what we're going to talk about. And I mean it in the fullest sense, angry as hell. And the way that this came about, to be honest with you,

just a while ago, my wife and I were driving in the car, and it was just a regular evening. I think it was about 8 o'clock in the evening, and we were driving down the road, and all of a sudden, we're aware that a car, to my right, pulled up next to me, and you know when someone is sort of going the same speed you are for a particular reason, and I just glanced over, and the guy gave me a signal with his hand that was less than loving, should I say? And I thought, what in the world is that guy so angry about? And he started mouthing or, you know, words. And I looked at my wife and said, what is his problem? So I slowed down a little bit, just to get away from him. And he slowed down and stayed to my right. And I sped up a little bit. And he sped up. And I thought, I got a problem

here. And I don't know if this guy is drunk. I don't know if he's high on meth. I don't know. I don't know what I did, frankly, back there a mile or so ago that would have made him so angry. And my wife didn't know either. So I thought, well, what am I going to do? This guy is angry as hell. What am I going to do? So I thought, well, I'm not going home because I'm not going to let him know where I live. so I knew where the local police department was, you know, and so I pulled off on the side of the road, and he followed me, and he started following me in and out of roads, and I knew I had a problem, and I was going to take him right to the police station. So we eventually got right to the police station. I pulled in, and he pulled in, and as he realized where he was, he backed up and took off. Never saw him again.

But it was scary, and we run into this occasionally. Have you ever been a part of road rage? Have you ever been going down the road and somebody suddenly got mad at you? And you had no idea, really, no idea. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I know why someone's mad at me and I have to mea culpa, you know, right there on the road. I might as well do a sign and write up a sign, mea culpa, mea coppa, you know, it's my fault. Don't worry.

But in this case, I didn't know what, what had happened. It can be dangerous. It can be disconcerting. And it's part of our culture. In fact, anger is so common in our culture today that we have names for it, like road rage and going postal and losing it, you know, where we see it on the news all the time. And as Christians, it's something that we have to watch ourselves when it comes to anger. We have to watch our anger. And in today's show, I want to talk to you about good anger.

I want to talk to you about bad anger. I want to talk to you about the trigger points in your life that set you. off and how you can offset that, how you can fight this, and really walk in holiness and walk in a good kind of anger. And we're also going to talk about how we confront anger if somebody else is angry with us. So I hope you stay with me. We're going to have a good show. We're going to investigate this whole issue of anger. And hopefully, as a result of it, we're going to walk in love and kindness and know how to walk in good anger and how to avoid bad anger. We'll be back right after this. This is The Jeff Kaven Show. It's hard to live out your Catholic faith on your own.

In fact, the Bible reveals that we need a community of people to help us on our journey of faith. If you're interested in finding that community by joining or starting a small group study, visit ascensionpress.com and sign up for a free ascension account. With your account, you'll get all the tools you need to start walking with others towards Christ. Welcome back to the Jeff Kaven show. We're talking about anger today, and maybe you're listening to the show in the car, and something has already happened today where someone pulled over in front of you or got too close behind you, and you felt yourself getting a little bit angry.

Well, you know, sometimes people act out of their anger with passive-aggressive behavior. In other words, they act like they are calm, but underneath they are angry, and they may express it by not doing something that you want them to do. So sometimes you're around angry people, and you're not really aware that they're angry, but suddenly it comes out. Maybe that's something you struggle with yourself. I like what the scripture says in Proverbs 29, 22, it says a man of wrath stirs up strife and a man given to anger causes much anger. That's Proverbs 29, 22. The problem with anger is that when we don't understand it, it literally can control your life. It's like any passion.

It has the potential of ending up with good or with evil. And in unresolved anger, whether it's in your family or at work or with your neighbor or on the road, as I mentioned before the break, it can ruin your life. But I want to start off and talk a little bit about anger today, and perhaps I'll give a couple of examples in my own life. But one of the things that's important to understand about anger is that anger is an emotion. It's an emotion that rises up literally within one to three seconds, typically. You can go from zero to a hundred really, really quick, which tells us that we must learn to get on top of it quickly. We've got to learn to control our anger. And when we suddenly become angry, believe it or not, it causes a physiological reaction, which is sustained by hormones that last, doctors tell us, for about 30 minutes.

I was down at Mayo Clinic. I'm in Minnesota's Mayo Clinic is where my general physician is, and we were talking and talking about how anger is deadly. In fact, a cardiologist told me one time, he said, I would rather that you smoke a few cigarettes. a day than to live in anger in terms of your cardiovascular health. There are people that have great cholesterol readings. They have great EKGs and everything else, but they had a heart attack in the midst of an anger fit. And that is the potential of anger. Anger can change you literally physiologically. And so that's what people refer to, you know, this 30-minute period where your whole body has changed because of anger, that's where we get this phrase, you need to cool down.

You know, you need to just cool down, which is actually wisdom when it comes to, when it comes to anger. Well, you know, the catechism talks about anger, but it talks about anger in the context of the principal passions. The principal passions are things that, they're passions that all of us experience every single one of us at one time or another. So you have hatred, one of the passions that we deal with. Hatred, we have desire, fear, joy, sadness, and, yes, anger. Anger is one of those principal passions. And you can find that in the catechism in paragraph 1772. Now, here's what's interesting about the passions, because I've heard people say before,

well, I'm Irish, I can't help it. You know, it's just part of my DNA. It's the way my dad acted, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and my great-great-grandfather. Well, that's not true. We're going to learn today that you can control your passions, you can control anger, as well as you can control sadness, you know, or fear, desire, hatred as well. But here's what it says in the catechism in paragraph 1773. It says, in the passions, as movements of the sensitive appetite, there is neither moral good nor evil. But insofar as they engage reason and will, there is a moral good or evil in them.

And then it goes on in paragraph 1774, and it says emotions and feelings can be taken up in the virtues or, as in the case of that guy that was tail in me the other night, perverted by the vices. So what do we mean by that? Well, what we mean is that emotions in themselves are neither evil or good. or holy, but the emotions and the feelings can be taken up or they can be influenced, as you know, putting it another way, by virtue. So if your emotions, the emotion of anger is influenced by virtue, it can actually end up becoming a very good thing. But if your anger is influenced by vice, which could be selfishness or, you know, concupiscence, this disordered self-centeredness, or drunkenness or something else, it can turn into something that is very, very, very destructive.

And how many people we know by listening to the news that ended up in prison because of one outrage that they couldn't control and the law said, you're dangerous. You are dangerous. We also know that anger is something that also God experiences because we know. we know about the anger of God, Jeremiah chapter 3. I could give you a lot of verses there. And we're not going to go into that right at the moment. I want to get right to one of the questions that many people ask me when I talk about anger. And that is this. Is there a purpose for anger? If it is one of the principal passions that every person is created with and every person can experience good anger and bad anger? Is there a purpose for anger? And the answer is yes. Absolutely. There is a

purpose for anger. Anger, and I'm going to go over this a couple of times because I think it's really, really important, because I just got this sense that you might be dealing with anger in your own life right now in a relationship or at work, wherever it might be. And I want you to know that there is a purpose. What is God's purpose in anger? Well, anger, is designed to motivate us to take right action when wrong is done or an injustice is done. Now, I want you to remember that because we're going to go over that quite a few times because that is really what we're going to look at when suddenly we get angry on the road or at work or home. Suddenly we get angry. And we're going to have to go back to that. That is a baseline,

a foundation to discern our own passions. Anger is designed. Anger is designed. I'll say it again, anger is designed to motivate us to take right action when wrong is done or an injustice is done. So that tells us right away that there is a good anger. There's an anger that is righteous, a righteous anger, an anger that is constructive because something good can come out of it, but there's also an anger that is very, very destructive. Now, good anger, let's look at that for a moment. Good anger. This is an anger that is a response to an injustice. There's a moral transgression. There's a sin against us or against me or against my family, one member of my family. Let's say you have a, someone invades your home, they rob your home, and your spouse was injured by,

or your spouse was injured by a drunk driver or something like that. You at that point notice a transgression, an injustice, and an anger can come up in your heart. Now, what you do with that can go one of two ways. If it is accompanied by vice, it can go in the wrong way. If it's accompanied by virtue, it can go in a really good way. As the psalmist said in Psalm 4 and verse 1, or Psalm 4 in verse 4, be angry, but do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your angry. And let me give you an example of good anger.

And I think that most of you will be able to identify with this, because you've heard of the organization that I'm going to describe here. You probably have not heard the name, Candy Leichner. Candy Leichner. Candy Leichner was shocked when a drunk driver killed her 13-year-old daughter, Carrie. As you would be shocked and I would be shocked. hurt and incensed. Well, when a judge gave the drunk driver a really light sentence, she was hurt. And that hurt, which is expected, turned into anger. And that anger could have gone one of two ways. She could have gone after that drunk driver's family. She could have turned

herself to drinking. She could have done a lot of different things that were destructive, but she didn't. She saw that in just a as an opportunity to do something right, and she turned that anger into a national movement to correct the problem, which you know as mothers against drunk drivers. That's Candy Leichner. Now, that's an example of someone who had every right to be angry. When a judge gave a hand slap to the murderer of her daughter, her 13-year-old daughter, Carrie, she did something about it. And she worked hard at it. You see, anger signals you that something serious needs attention. Anger signals you that something is wrong, and you just might have an opportunity to turn that around.

Now, on the other hand, bad anger, which I'm ashamed to say I have fallen into from time to time, I think probably most of us have, bad anger. This is the result of frustration and, unfortunately, fulfilled desire. It is a bad mood. It's poor health. It's something that has just inconvenienced your life. That's what James tells us. He says, you're angry because you didn't get what you wanted, basically. So you blow up at your spouse, for example, because he or she forgot to pick up stakes on the way home. Now, does that really, does that really warrant anger? Or did it inconvenience you? And so you got angry. Was there an injustice done? No. Inconvenience? Did I need to escalate it to the point of ruining the evening? No. Oh, but how many times I have?

How many times have I wrecked an evening out of selfishness? Had no business being angry at all. None. But I chose to align my anger with vice instead of virtue. And the whole evening was shot. I got a kick a while ago. I was at a store. And you know, on your credit card, on the back of your credit card, on the back of your credit, card you're supposed to sign your name. Well, a lot of guys don't want to sign their name because if they lose their credit card and they try to buy something at Best Buy or Target or somewhere, they're going to look on the back of it and see that it's signed and everything must be okay. So what they put on the back of their card instead of their signature is they put CID. In other

words, ask for my ID. And this guy went into the store. No kidding. I was standing right behind him. He went into the store. He had CID on his card. and he handed it to the lady, and she looked at it and she said, can I see some ID? The guy blew up. No kidding. He was crazy. He blew up, and he said, what do you mean show you my ID? I'm hitting here all the time.

She goes, it says CID. Now, that was what was funny about it. Is that guy is the one that put that on the card, but he responded in an inappropriate way with his anger. So we cannot use anger for our. selfishness. We have to distinguish between sinfulness and anger. And God's anger, my friend, is not vengeful. It's not vengeful at all. So how do you know if you're experiencing bad anger? Well, in good anger, there's always a wrong perpetrated. In bad anger, there is always a perceived wrong. The perceived wrong is in your mind. It's your perception. And in most cases, it's not worth

correcting. It just simply is not worth the emotional energy that you have to put out to make that wrong, that little wrong, right. And that's another thing about anger, too, that we have to think about is, are you going to spend your life correcting little wrongs, or are you going to spend your life correcting major issues that really need to be corrected and need, by the way, the assistance of the Holy Spirit to help you? I like this one quote by a writer. I've enjoyed listening to him and I've enjoyed reading his writings on family. Gary Chapman is a great evangelical writer.

And he says this, and it's great. He says, speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you ever regretted. I love it. I love it. Your job in an instant is to distinguish between the two, good and bad, anger. and then pause before your response. So what are you going to get angry about? That's really a good question.

I asked that question to myself. I ask that question of you. What are you going to get angry about? I mean, really, what's worth it? We need to train ourselves to not get angry about the small things, but the things that really do matter and the things that we can change. Now, right away, and I mentioned this earlier,

people will say, well, you know what, Jeff, that's all good. It's all good and well and everything, but I can't control my anger. Bologna. That is hogwash. You can't control your anger. Yes, you can. You can control your anger, and I can control my anger.

And any of us can control the principal passions. We can. We can control the principal passions. We really can. Let's go over those again real quick. We've got love, and we've got, let's see what else we got. We got love. hatred. You can control your hatred. You can control love. You can control desire. You can control fear. You can control joy. When was the last time you just broke out into an unbelievable joy? And someone said, what's going on? You said, I don't know. I can't help it. I can't help it. I can't stop myself. I'm just so joyful. I don't think so. You can control your joy. You can control sadness. And once again, you can control anger.

So have you ever noticed how society celebrates venting anger? We don't encourage people to vent compassion, do we? We're going to have a big compassion fest, and we're just going to vent compassion. We don't see that. I love what James says. James says in chapter 1, verse 9, be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, which really tells us that you can put the throttle on it if you choose to.

if you choose to, you can do that. A couple of other scriptures, Proverbs 1417, a man of quick temper acts foolishly, but a man of discretion is patient. Ephesians 426, be angry, but do not sin. And Ecclesiastes 7.9, be not quick to anger,

for anger lodges in the bosom of fools. Fools. So emotions can be controlled, and we don't complain that, that, you know, that we have these outbreaks of great joy and so forth, as I mentioned. But we do suddenly say that I can't control my anger. But here's the funny thing. Let me give you an example of how you can control anger, just for my own life.

And I would have adventure to say, you've done the same thing in your life. And that's this. You and your spouse, or you and whoever, but for me, you and your spouse, or you're in the kitchen. And all of a sudden, you get angry. You start angry, you start, you know, raising your voice and arguing about something. You know, if you would have done this, this wouldn't have turned out that way. Yeah, but if you would have, yeah, I'm so sick and tired, blah, blah, blah, blah. And all sudden the phone rings. And you go from yelling at each other to suddenly, hello, Kaven's residence, bingo. You controlled your anger on a dime. You controlled it just like that.

so we can't use that as an excuse i can't control my anger a fool the bible says in proverbs 29 11 a fool gives full vent to anger but a wise man controls it so i'd like you to think of yourself as someone who can literally control anger that you are not so helpless as that you have to you have to do what anger dictates in your life that isn't the case you can actually control the anger in your life. Or another way to put it is you can harness your anger. You know, it's not enough to just handle anger. We have to learn to learn a new response because we've already learned that we can control it. So we now have to respond differently. Control and respond. And that's really, really important. You know, as I live out my life and I look back,

I think about the different times where I lost it, you know, it got angry. And I think about the repercussions of that, not only lost time in a day, maybe even a weakened relationship, or maybe you lose a relationship with someone because of it, it's just not worth the cost. It's not worth the cost, you know? It's not worth the price, I should say, not the cost, but the price. It's not worth the price. So how do we control our anger?

How do we control our anger? I want to talk about that next. I want to give you some practical steps on how to control your anger. We're going to take a break right now. And when we come back, I'll give you those steps to control your anger. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. There might be an upcoming ascension event happening near you, and we'd love for you to attend. Almost every week, our inspiring Catholic speakers travel to parishes, schools, and organizations around the country to ignite hearts with the love of Christ.

Discover and register for upcoming ascension events at ascensionpress.com slash events. Welcome back to the Jeff Kaven show, talking about anger today. In fact, the title, it's called Angry as Hell. And I don't mean that in a flippant way. I mean it in a literal way. You know, when people are angry, they are angry. angry as hell a lot of times. We could go into that and everything that's going to happen in hell, but it's out of control. Let me tell you. But we want to experience an anger that can be

harnessed by God and an anger that is geared towards solving a problem, an injustice, a hurt that needs to be addressed, not just something that inconvenienced us or made us feel less than, you know, we were somehow hurt by a comet, so now we have to blow up. We've got to pick and choose what we're going to get angry about. And if we can do something about the situation like Candy Leichner, the founder of Mad, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, then you can experience that righteous indignation, that righteous anger. So how do we control our anger? Let me give you just a few kind of practical steps on how to control your anger.

Number one, that when something happens to you, whether someone pulls out in front of you or someone says something to you at home or you get an email from someone at work, whatever it might be, one of the smartest things that you can do, and wisdom would dictate this from a scriptural standpoint is pause. Take a breath. Pause. Chill. Just pause. Now, this is a discipline because as I said in the introduction anger oftentimes arises within one to three seconds so you have this is a discipline my friend it's a discipline this is something you've got to practice you've got to practice i don't know if you're going to practice with someone insulting you just for practice and say okay get a hold of yourself get a hold of yourself but you got to pause

take custody of your heart take custody of your mind rule yourself spirit. The Bible says, restrain your immediate response and watch the next 30 seconds go by. Just pause. Just pause. And you can do that. You can do that. There's a lot of things in life where we pause. And you can do that when you feel violated hurt. Just pause. Number two, what you want to do is you want to consciously acknowledge, you know what? I'm feeling anger. I am feeling anger here. I'm feeling anger. Number three is, and this is a suggestion that I've heard actually from several psychologists and counselors, priests, deacons, and that is this, count to ten.

It's amazing how counting to ten makes a difference in your response as you pause and get control of yourself. Count to ten. Get under control. Remember, sin against will and reason is what's at the heart of anger, the sin against will and reason that you can be reasonable about this. You can control your will. So count to 10. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven, eight, nine, ten. It's not that long, but it sure can sober you up quickly as far as your response goes.

Number four, what you want to do is you want to locate the focus of your anger. Let me back up just for a second, though. One through three. You can do that quickly. You know, next time you're angry, don't say, okay, what was one, two, and three? It's basically, pause. I'm angry. I'm going to count to ten.

It's pretty quick. Then number four, locate the focus of your anger. In other words, identify what specific. about the other person or situation bothers you. Is it good anger or is it bad anger? Does it really warrant me being angry and doing something here? Or is it an inconvenience, a slight insult that I can just offer up to the Lord and forgive? Or does action, is action dictated here? Do I need to take action here? Remember, that's the key. Good anger notifies you, good anger notifies you that an injustice has taken place and action is necessary, whether it's quick or whether it's going to

take time. That is dependent upon the situation. So locate the focus of your anger. Number five, is it good or bad anger? What needs to be accomplished? What needs to be accomplished here? So with Carrie Leichner, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, when she became angry, she had to ask herself what needs to be accomplished here. Well, she could have gone on a tirade and found herself in jail. but she didn't. She paused. She counted to 10 and much, much more. She located the focus of her anger. She realized, I have a right to be angry here. This is righteous indignation. And what did she do? She went about changing the court systems. It was long and meticulous, and it took time, but she did it. So that's point number five. You've got to determine whether it's good or bad anger.

And then number six, analyze your options. What are your options here? Does the action I'm about to take or say have anything to do with correcting the wrong or building the person up, which we've got to remember to do as Christians? Does it help the other person? Is it best for the person with whom I am angry? And then, take constructive action. If it warrants you to be angry to the point where you need to take action, then you need a plan. Take action.

take action or the other choice is turn it over to God in other words offer it up and I gotta be honest with you more times than not in my life driving at home at work wherever that's what it is rarely does my situation warrant anger to the point where I have to take action you know what it is mostly oh i hate to tell you this it's selfishness my day was inconvenience i didn't get what i wanted i didn't get to order what i wanted they didn't do this they didn't do that i thought you were going to it's me all about me and that's what i've got to learn to turn over to the lord is that kind of a situation. I just got this sense.

Some of you might be driving in the car right now, going home to a situation that hasn't been good lately. You know what? It's time for us to walk in holiness. It's time for us to take custody of our heart and our emotions and own up to it and be big kids and walk in holiness. Walk in holiness. Proverbs 1911,

Good Sense makes a man slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. Boy, I need that. I don't know if you're listening to the show today, but I'm listening to the show today, and I need that in my life in spades, big time. So offer it up. Either you take action on this because an injustice has taken place,

or you offer this up and give it to God, and move on. Move on. You don't need to spend emotional energy on this type of thing that's going on. If someone says this or they say that, big deal. Or as they say in Greek, whoop-de-ding. It doesn't really matter. Live your life for the things that really matter. Now there's another thing that I want to share with you that is really big. And that is the triggers. Get to know your triggers for bad anger because there are things that you can do, things that you can be involved in, that are going to make you more, shall we say, more predisposed to falling into bad anger. And that's what I want to talk to you on the other side of this break. We're going to take just a moment, and we'll be back

in a second, and we'll learn a little bit about the triggers to anger and maybe talk about a couple that you are struggling with. I'm Jeff Kaven's, and this is The Jeff Kaven show. Hi, this is Father Mike Schmitz. And if you're looking for a way to learn more about your Catholic faith, I invite you to check out the Ascension Presents YouTube channel. You're going to find tons of free videos featuring Catholic presenters like Matt Frad, Liadero, Jackie Bobby Angel, and Emily Wilson. Go to YouTube.com slash Ascension Presents.

That's YouTube.com slash Ascension Presents. And if you like what you see, please share and subscribe. Welcome back, my friends. We're talking about being angry as well. hell today. Yep, that's right. Angry as hell. Hopefully we want to get away from it and be as angry as the righteousness of God. That's what we're looking at today. I like talking about these topics, talking about anger today, because I know that it's practical, and I know that it bridges the gap between faith and everyday life, and I know that God has something to say about our principal

passions in our life. I know that. And it's so exciting. to know that the Word of God, scripture and the tradition that we've been given, really does address these issues. Before the break, I mentioned to you that we're going to talk about triggers. And boy, I have some. I have some triggers in my life, and I know that you have triggers in your life that predispose you to bad anger. Bad anger, once again, is that anger that there's no injustice here. There's nothing you've got to take action about. You were just a little bit miffed. You're a little hurt, it'll put off inconvenienced whatever and you sort of lost it and everybody else had to bear the wrath of dad you know or bear the wrath of mom well what are those triggers what are those triggers well you

i think if you if you're married we'll start right there if you're married go ask your you know spouse i think they know your triggers i do i can set my wife off if i want to and she can set me off if she wants to. She knows the trigger. And she knows how to pull that trigger. And when you look at guns, for example, I'll just go a little deeper with that with a trigger. They have a pistol. You've got light triggers. You've got light triggers that are like two to three pounds to pull that trigger. And you've got you got heavy triggers that are 10, 11, 12 pounds to pull that trigger. Some of us, it's harder to pull the trigger. It's others that it's pretty quick. It's pretty, pretty quick. So what are some of them?

Well, you know, hormones is one, okay? Particularly for ladies, hormones can be something to watch in how you respond to perceived injustice or true injustice, hormones. And I would say that's probably true with men too. But I think a lot of people identify that as something that women's hormones are more, they, fluctuate a little bit more, and men kind of have that one. Criticism is one. I hate being criticized. I wish I didn't. I wish I could just take criticism so easily, but sometimes when I'm criticized, boom, I can find myself getting angry quick. How are you with criticism? I mean, if someone criticizes you, are you pretty good about it, or does it get to you quickly?

you know another one that that I hear a lot about in families all right here it is it's four o'clock on a Saturday and you are going to a dinner party at six now you like to be there on time so you know that it's going to be a half an hour drive to get there by six so you're going to leave at 520 now your spouse doesn't pay attention to this as much and there you are at 529 or 535 and you're standing at the door saying we're going to be late and your spouse gives you that same answer that you've heard for 32 years and you lose it and all of a sudden the evening and certainly the ride over but the evening is shot being late maybe that's a trigger maybe that's a trigger that you need to be aware of that every time

your spouse is late you end up becoming angry Well, let's ask ourselves a question there. Is that a serious injustice that's taking place? No, it's not. But it is something that you can address, but you can address it in love and in kindness and charity. You don't need to ruin the evening. You just simply don't.

You know, here's another big trigger. It's a big trigger for a lot of people drinking. You know that there's a lot of blow-ups and anger, not only within the family between dad and mom and the kids and dad and mom, but there's a lot of problems on the highway too and dinner parties or whatever it might be that if somebody wasn't drinking, if they didn't have those two Jack and Cokes, they would have been fine. But those two Jack and Cokes put them in a position to where they could lose it really quick.

And they do. And how many times I've heard people say, you know, Mom's just fine until she's had a couple drinks, and then we don't know what we're getting because that's the trigger for her. Can I just say something right now? And that is this. If that's you,

please consider just giving up alcohol because it's not worth it. Yes, everything in moderation, I know, but if you can't handle it, and that alcohol becomes the entrance ticket to anger dating the vices, then you're going to lose over and over and over. Wisdom would dictate, stay away from it if it's a big trigger point in your life. Financial problems is another one.

Earlier on in our marriage, if we had financial problems and Emily brought it up, man, I could get angry quick because I felt so much like a loser that I wasn't controlling my finances or we were getting further in debt and she wanted us to get out of debt and she brought it up and, man, I could lose it. It was a trigger point. Stress is a big trigger point too in people's lives. Diet is.

Sweet things don't always translate into sweet dispositions, but they can actually get you to a point where you can get angry quickly. Here's another one. And I've noticed this in my life, to be honest with you. Lack of sleep. sleep is very, very underrated, you know, in society. Oh, I can get by with five hours.

I can get by with four. I can get by with six. Get as much sleep as you can. It's your body's rest. It is healing itself and mending itself. And your brain is putting everything in the right place that it needs to be. You need sleep. You really do.

And if you don't get it, you're more susceptible to anger. The idea that my ideas are not accepted is a trigger. If you've been in a meeting at work and you give all these great ideas and people look at you like, oh, good. Okay, let's move on to the next point. And you're like, no, we're not moving on to the next point. You just diss my ideas and you can become angry. Another one is unfulfilled expectations in a relationship.

Unfulfilled expectations. Wow, the heart just, the heart sinks with unfulfilled. expectations, doesn't it? And here's one more. I could give you a lot of these. I'll give you one more, though. And that is this. Poor customer service on the phone.

Oh, there's been a few times we're going to take that phone and just slam it down to the, you know, the counter. And I'm angry. Did I need to be? No. Was I? Yes. Did the kids see? Yes.

was the evening shot? Yes. Did it need to be? No. Oh, man, I wish I could go back and learn from some of these things, and hopefully going forward now we can learn from them and walk. Walk as Jesus walked. So what about confronting a person in anger? Maybe you're not struggling with anger as much as people in your family struggling with anger. I want to give you a few tips on that, on that, too. If you're confronting a person in anger, the number one principle to learn is Proverbs 15-1, which says that a soft answer turns away wrath. Suddenly, someone comes to you at work. You know what? I'm really, really ticked off about what happened in that meeting. And if I read you

right, this is what you meant. That stop, remember? Pause. Pause. Pause. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, 10. Where's this coming from? What's this about? A soft answer turns away wrath. You don't have to suddenly in the middle of their sentence say, just a minute here. I'm tired. A soft answer turns away wrath. But a harsh answer, well, it stirs up anger. That brings up anger. So number one, a soft answer. Number two, listen to them without answering. If they're angry, listen to them. Don't butt in. Don't answer right away. take in the data, listen to them, hear the whole story, then ask questions to clarify the situation. Remember, inside of that person is a deep sense that they have been wronged.

They have a perceived injustice that they're dealing with. That's what you want to help them solve. This isn't just a battle, I'm right, you're right. You want to help solve a perceived or real injustice because he thinks that you are involved or you have the power or the influence to help. That's why he's engaging you. That's why she's engaging you. What are you doing? Respecting him, respecting her and treating them the way you would want to be treated. Oftentimes, you know, when we confront our children, if our children get angry, try to see it through their eyes. Try to see the way they are communicating to what they are really angry about. And listen, and I know this from experience, if you stop, if you stop the conversation because

of the way they are communicating, you will never get to the heart of the problem. And I'll be honest with you, I've said this before to my kids. I didn't listen to what they were saying. I listened to the way they were communicating. I stopped him. I said, until you can talk to me in a civil way, I am not going, blah, blah, I'm bigger than that. Listen to their heart and help them resolve this perceived injustice. If parents don't try to understand the source of their children's anger, their children may end up

with passive, aggressive behavior. And they may be passive on the outside, but aggressive later. And then number three, put yourself in the angry person's shoes. Try to empathize. Would you be angry? You are trying to help them process. You are trying to help them process. their anger. Your response is not defensive. Shouldn't be defensive. Put yourself in their situation. And then number four, share some additional information which may shed light on the situation. Anything that you know the facts that will help solve the problem. And then confession and restitution. If you're wrong, don't be defensive. Confess it and make restitution. if they are right and I've had times where somebody told me about me and they were right

but I continued to put the wall up and stand my ground to my own hurt. It would have been better to humble myself and to say, you are right, you are right and I am wrong. Anything that you know, the facts that will help, you know, solve the problem here will will come into play, I am wrong. You just stated this fact. You just stated that you are right. You are right. I'm wrong. I'm wrong. Now, wrong responses, what do they try to do? You know, if you have a wrong response, try to cap the anger. And that's what we typically do. I'm going to cap your anger. I'm going to cap it. I'm not going to listen to it. If you continue with that tone, go to your room. You have to overlook tone, face, voice, and try to discover what they're angry about.

imitate their behavior, imitate their behavior. If you do that, now what I'm saying there is that if you imitate their behavior, if they yell, you yell. If they curse, you curse. That is wrong.

That's wrong. You change the game. You change the atmosphere by walking responsibly and in holiness. And, you know, just a little side note, dealing with your children, don't be harsh. Oh, don't be harsh. You know, I have three girls, and they're all grown up now. And sometimes I look back and I think it was too harsh, particularly with my daughters. And I'm going to talk about that on an upcoming show.

I'm going to talk about raising daughters. But fathers, don't be harsh with your girls. fathers don't provoke your children. Paul said this to the Ephesians. He said in Ephesians 6-4, fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The child's anger may be seated in a distorted anger rather than a valid anger. If this is the case, then working it out with them is the important thing. You be the model. You show the right behavior. You guide your child through anger episodes. Give them instruction. give him instruction from a place of calm and a loving heart, a loving heart. I love it.

Wow, the time goes by so quickly, and I wish that we could spend more time together talking about this. Perhaps we will in the future. It's a very important topic, anger, and how to manage it. There is, once again, as we conclude, a good anger and a bad anger. A good anger is when an injustice has been done, and that anger is calling you to do something. something about it. But a bad anger, an evil anger that gives itself over to the vices is oftentimes due to our own selfishness and inconvenience, and we want things put right that really don't need to be put right. We're learning to discern between the two and take appropriate action. Now, what I would just encourage you to do, if you're listening on the way home right now in the car,

is that if you're dealing with something at home and you go home, do something different today. Let them see a different side of you. Hey, it's been good talking to you. Once again, you can get all of my Bible studies and all the materials that I've worked on in the last 20 years at ascensionpress.com. That's ascensionpress.com on Twitter. I'm Jeff Kavens.

Jeff Kavins on Facebook. You can just Google that. Facebook, go there and search. You'll find that right away. And the website is Jeff Kavins.com. That's where I put my schedule. my pilgrimages with my wife or to Israel and everything. We look forward to spending time with you.

If you're interested in me coming to your city to do a seminar on the weekend, go to ascensionpress.com, and they'll give you all the information. God bless you, and you have a wonderful day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.