Viewing entries tagged
anger
Everybody knows the command to honour your father and your mother, and Jesus called us to love our enemies. But what if our enemy is also our abuser? What if the parent we’re called to honour is mistreating or exploiting us? Some say the Christian response is to turn the other cheek. Others follow the recent explosion in articles advocating that you cut off all the toxic people in your life. The biblical tension is somewhere in between.
You don’t have to be following Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against Amber Heard to know how dangerous anger can be when it’s out of control. We all know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a person’s anger. And we’ve also seen the damage that our own anger has caused. There are 4 specific roles that God alone can fill in helping us to deal with our anger in constructive ways.
Are you spending more time with cyber friends than neighbourhood friends? Are you focused more on quantity of friendships than quality? Are you listening to the kind of voices that are fuelling your anger? Or have you let charm and beauty take the priority that character and God’s grace were intended to have in your thinking? Let the Bible’s ancient wisdom guard your interaction with social media today.
While some parents treat anger as a discipline strategy, Scripture has convinced me that getting angry at children usually does more to model the parent’s lack of grace than it does to help build grace in children. This article looks at what you can do to be slightly less angry with your children.
Last week’s post about, “How to Have It Out Without Making It Worse,” generated a lot of good interaction. One person asked about the challenge not to go to bed angry. While most people would agree with the principle, the struggle is what to do when an issue can’t be solved in one day. If I’m angry with my spouse, does that mean I can’t ever go to bed?
Marriage can be wonderful, but conflict is usually part of the equation. There are differences to work out, hurts to deal with, and misunderstandings to overcome. Some people will barge into conflict with little concern for how it hurts the other person. Other people will bottle their feelings in until they’re ready to explode. Either way, the consequences can be devastating. Learning how to deal effectively with conflict in a marriage can be helped by laying down some simple ground rules on how to fight fair. I was helped by Brian Orme’s article in this regard. He gives five do’s and five don’ts for more constructive conflicts. This week, we’ll look at the five things to avoid.
The challenges of parenting start early. Most birth stories sound like thrillers, filled with tension, jump scenes, and a piercing soundtrack. After the birth, you have to cope with sleep deprivation and the emotional and often inexplicable crying. The excitement of early accomplishments like crawling, walking, and the first words are often offset by worries of whether those milestones are late, slow, or somehow signals of disadvantage compared to peers or your most vocal relative’s memory of when these things are supposed to happen. And then comes one of the biggest challenges of all: the first time your child responds with a defiant, “No!” What do you do when your child rejects your authority and crosses the line you’ve told them not to cross? Let’s look at two common options and a third alternative that the Bible gives.
On Sunday we had a time of dedication for one of our church families. The couple dedicated themselves before God and the church family to train and love and seek their baby's salvation. And we dedicated ourselves before God to love and support their family in their commitments. For me it was an opportunity to think on some of the lessons God has taught me about parenting
