Anger and Control (or Lack Thereof)
Let’s talk about anger and control—or lack thereof, of course. In our minds, we plan events. We get up in the morning with goals: I’m going to go to work. I’m going to drive my car. I’m going to be there on time. And then something comes along and just blocks it. It all depends on how important it is to you. When something blocks your goal, it causes you to get mad because your goal is important to you. It’s an interesting thing because you can’t control it.
In our own mind, we have our own concept of how we’re going to have a happy, successful, fulfilled day, and then things come along and block that goal. Then we naturally get angry. For example, a mother says, “We’re going to have dinner at 5.” She’s gotten in ready, and then the kids don’t show up. Or she cleans the house, and the kids traipse in mud on the carpet. The natural reaction to that is anger; that’s understandable. You may have certain goals for your life that you’re just not certain how it’s going to turn out, and you feel anxious about it. That’s a normal thing; it’s how God created us. People can get very depressed over things like that though—things that you wanted to happen that just don’t happen which leads to disappointment. It feels like a loss and can lead to feeling depressed.
However, no God given goal for your life can be blocked.
This discussion between my friend and FIC Board Member, Matt Massingale, will further detail how we navigate anger and control in our personal lives and relationships:
Matt Massingale: How do you suggest we help children who get angry so fast?
Neil Anderson: This is a great question; it has a lot to do with simply how you raise children. Everybody who has been a parent knows about the “terrible two’s.” It’s just a fact of life when a little child wants to expand himself and exert himself with an “I can do it” attitude. Almost every child goes through that phase of life. The key during that time is to break the will—but not the spirit—of the child. The child is asking two questions during this time, Do you love me? and Can I get my own way? The good parent says, Yes, I love you, but no you cannot get your own way. The truth of the matter is, if you just love your child and let them have their own way, I can promise you that you’re going to have some difficult teenage years with that child.
This problem of control is an illusion. We think we can control the future ahead of us. It’s a very common statement: “I’m the master of my fate; I’m the captain of my soul.” This statement sounds good, but it’s actually very humanistic. God never designed the soul to function as master. We’re either serving God or man and being deceived into thinking that we’re serving ourselves, but the truth of the matter is, we really aren’t.
The whole goal of life is to honor God. When you try to make a decision about the future, you have to consider two factors. 1) Anytime you make a decision, you’ll never know if all the facts are in even if you’ve done all the research to gather may facts and are a wise person. There’s simply no way to ever know that, and there’s no way to know what the consequences of your decision will be. This illusion of control is sad because there is nobody more insecure than a controller. Why do you think that is, Matt?
MM: I think you want to control because you don’t really understand God. You may know about God, but you don’t really know Him. And if you don’t know Him, you can’t trust Him. So if you can’t trust Him, you know that someone has to be in control—why not you?
NA: It brings up an issue that is prevalent to us in terms of our own personal ministry. It enters into the concept of being driven or called—to make it happen or let it happen. I’m really of the ilk that you let it happen by giving God your future. I like to explain it with this analogy: Picture a door… and on the other side of that door is God’s will for you. Do you find yourself wanting to know what is on the other side of that door before walking through it? Would the answer help you determine whether or not if you want to go through the door? You have to decide if you are going to walk through the door on this side of the door. If God is God, He has the right to decide what’s on the other side of that door for you. The key to that is learning to bloom where you’re planted and be faithful where you’re at. There’s no need to rattle doors, God will open the door at the right time; then you can go through it boldly.
The fallacy of the insecure controller all comes back to his/her belief that in order for them to be successful, happy, or fulfilled they must have their own way. In order to make that happen, they recognize that they need to manipulate the circumstances or control other people.
MM: They presume that they know what is best—and they don’t. I think the key to that is when realize that God has infinite knowledge. He is the creation, and I’m not.
At this point in my life, I’m going through some transitions, and I can confidently say that I don’t know what’s best for me; I’m simply trusting God to lead me into whatever the next adventure is at this point. I don’t want control.
NA: That’s a much more adventurous type of living!
I remember when I was an aerospace engineer. I had a plan all mapped out for the next 5 years. But I have been so surprised by God over the years that all of a sudden I’m no longer an engineer; I’m standing up at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas giving my heart to Christ. The next thing you know, I’m off to seminary—not knowing what God was going to do. I kind of thought I would just be a country pastor being paid with chickens and eggs! But God had a different idea for me. I had no idea I would ever be a seminary professor. And I had no desire to start my own ministry.
MM: He told me he never had a desire to write a book.
NA: That’s true. I never thought I would; it wasn’t on my agenda. But that makes life to me a lot more exciting and interesting rather than it being fixed in a certain way requiring you to make things happen—which causes you to star manipulate people and situations.
I’ve seen families torn up by people who just have to control every little detail of the day, and it can be nothing but one angry period after another.
MM: I’ve seen that so many times, Neil, and it’s due to fear. People think they have to control because they do not have trust.
NA: I think that’s true.
MM: The control issue is a complex issue because self-control is a fruit of the spirit, but we’re not talking about not having self-control. It’s the control that tries to control outcomes; that’s where it starts to run off the rails.
NA: In saying that, there’s nothing wrong with making a goal or having plans for the future; however, this cannot be a god. And it’s no good if you have a goal to accomplish something this year that doesn't include meaningful activities today. If it doesn’t affect you today, then it becomes a guilt thing that will come about later on.
I’ve seen this happen so many times when people just get angry when they go to a meeting, and things didn’t turn out they way they wanted them to. So they try to start controlling and manipulating the people around them. That is going to cause staff problems, ministry problems, and family problems that you just wouldn’t believe.
So what is the one goal in my life that cannot be blocked? To become the person that God created me to be. And for some reason, that just seems to be off the grid for so many people—myself included! When God leads you, you need some patience to allow God to prepare the ground before you.
Something that is fascinating to me: if our goal is blocked, we get angry; it if is uncertain, we get anxious; if the goal seems to be impossible, we get depressed. Now look at the fruit of the spirit. The goal of our instruction is love; it’s singular. If your goal is to take on the nature and character of God to become the person God created you to be. Know that God is love, then look at the rest of the fruits of the spirit: Love. Joy (instead of depression). Peace (instead of anxiety). Long suffering (instead of anger). Romans 5 tells us that we should exalt in our tribulations knowing that tribulations brings proven character and proven character brings hope, a hope that doesn’t disappoint because the love of God has been brought forth in our heart. Trials and tribulations reveal wrong goals, but they make possible THE goal: proven character that you will be a better person coming out of the trial than when you went into it.
MM: With the wrong expectation in the process of goals being exposed, we can become disillusioned in thinking that God is mad at you or God is bad or that you yourself are bad.
NA: An angry person doesn’t feel good about themself. No one likes living red-beet in the face trying to control all the people around them; it’s miserable.
When you look back over your life, how much would you say that you plans worked out to how you planned? Or were you moreso surprised by what came next in life?
MM: Hardly anything went according to plan [laughter]. That’s why I think over time you simply realize that you just don’t want to make the plans anymore. In Victory Over the Darkness you talk about the difference between a goal and a desire, and when I heard that I realized that so many of my desires that I didn’t have the right or ability to control had become a goal for me. And I was disappointed constantly.
NA: Writing that was a very liberating thing. There was a time when I though, “This is the key to life. Knowing who I am in Christ, that God is my Heavenly Father. And I’m just going to become the person that God created me to be.” I adopted a goal that every church could know this. I was setting myself up for failure because I had just made a desire a goal; I couldn’t control if churches would do that or not! I have a peace abut this now.
We’re in an election year this year, and you can just watch the angry people. And I can see why; they feel powerless. People protest, and I can understand why. We have a whole culture now of instant gratification. People often say or think, “I want change—that conforms to me—and I want it now.” Do you see this getting worse?
MM: I’ve talked to many pastors that talked about the process of discipleship just taking too long. I agreed, “Yeah, it takes a lifetime!” But that’s what we’re called to do. We’re not called to make converts; we’re called to make disciples.
NA: A parent can control a child with anger, and it can last for a long time. But it’s not good parenting, and you often don’t realize the damage that your’e doing to the child until much later. The whole orientation that you have towards the child is fear. You haven’t really developed something inwardly in the child, he or she is just responding in fear.
MM: The question we just asked, “How do you stop a child from getting anger so quickly?” Well, don’t focus on the anger; simply ask the child why they are so mad. Ask them to tell you the story; they’ll tell you what they’re mad about. Stop and be patient with them.
NA: I’m a real fan of allowing natural consequences to little temper tantrums by not feeding or fostering the tantrum by simply telling the child, “Too bad, but you’re just not getting [whatever the thing is] right now.”
MM: Children are looking for the boundaries; they’re looking for the limits because that communicates love to them. I often tell my grandchildren that if I didn’t love them, I wouldn’t correct them; I wouldn’t care what they did!
NA: Kids are asking two questions: Do you love me? and Can I have my own way? And the answer is, “Yes I love you; no, you can’t.” Then be steadfast and consistent with that.
Right now, rage is the number one emotion on the internet. People pick up someone else’s anger, then they begin to spread that anger. Now kids are picking up their phones and seeing something that makes them made; the media is exasperating the anger. We’ve always had anger problems, ever since the fall, but it really is pandemic right now. Nearly everyone is experiencing this!
A soft answer puts off wrath, and that is something that all of us have to learn. Don’t be defensive, just own up to your anger and move on.
The fruit of the spirit is not spouse-control, staff-control, or child-control; it is self-control. It is a miracle of God that as a child of God your body is a temple of God and that you have the mind of Christ knowing that the Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth. If you will regularly allow Him to fill you with the Holy Spirit, you will find self-control.
Just think through your life right now and ask yourself: Is this God’s goal for me?
Neil T. Anderson is the founder of Freedom in Christ Ministries. He began the ministry in 1989 and continues to spread the message of freedom to this day.