“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.” - Ephesians 4: 15
At the risk of sounding like a schizophrenic, if you ever held a conversation with your “self,” you know that as humans, we possess more than one identity within our soul. Many doctors, knowledgeable about the mind, call these inner ego states: the Inner Parent, Inner Adult and Inner Child. I agree with them, and with the Psalmist when he refers to his soul as a weaned child (Psalm 131:2).
At conversion, I persuaded my “Inner Child” to no longer use profanity to express my feelings. God taught me to articulate them with rational words rather than to curse at the person hurting my feelings. However, even after I eliminated profanity from my vocabulary, I still exploded in anger when someone’s words or behavior caused a fearful or insecure reaction in my soul. I used excessive anger to protect my “Inner Child” from perceived injustices. My anger struck hot and quickly like a volcano, and I left just as many deep scars behind in my wake.
In times like these, God recommends that we are quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger (James 1:19). Anger is actually a God-given emotion to use to protect us from injury, not to inflict injury. He allows us to feel the anger as a "red" flag, so that we know that something is wrong. Then, He cautions us to be slow to express it, and to guard against crossing over into sinful behavior with this possibly volatile emotion (Ephesians 4:26).
Anger allows other people to understand that what they just did or said is not acceptable to us. People will behave toward us in the way in which we teach them to treat us. If we allow others to abuse us either verbally or mentally or physically, we are inviting more of that same behavior in the future. Over the last two decades, I developed a habit of using premeditated wording to express my feelings, rather than to use hasty words to verbally attack the offending party.
I am learning to stand up for myself without hiding behind fierce anger and coarse words (Ephesians 5:4). Now I can say, “I feel afraid when you …;” or “I feel like you spend more time with …. than with me, and I need more of your attention;” or “Thank you for your opinion, but I do not agree with you;” or “I will not allow you to do that (or say that) to/about me anymore;” or “I think that you misunderstood the meaning behind my words/actions. Let me further explain to you how I feel (or why I took that action).”
In the face of confrontation, we still make it known in no uncertain terms that the offensive behavior is no longer acceptable to us; however, we respond with a confident, businesslike and resolute attitude. Even in the face of a verbal onslaught, we can state our feelings more clearly with firm, calm words than we can with angry, irrational ones. My husband and I use a notebook to write out our feelings to one another. This way we do not speak off the top of our head and potentially hurt one another more deeply.
God encourages us to live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18). We cannot ever control another person’s actions or responses towards us, but we can put distance between an abusive person and us. We do not need to overreact and divorce the person, but we can separate and work on reconciliation between us through counseling and calm discussions.
Even with all of our precautions, some people still may not accept what we say, and they may never change their behavior towards us. It is better to steer a wide path around such people who tend to abuse us, rather than to constantly put our self in harm’s way. When we take a step back and look at their actions from a spiritual frame of mind, we can pray for them and also about our response to them, by speaking firmly but kindly in the face of any imposition or attack against us.
I also take my hurt feelings to the Lord. He helps me to forgive the offender and to bless them (Proverbs 25:22), whether they respond positively or not. How they feel about me or what they think of me has no bearing on who I am or on my relationship with my Lord and Savior. In reality, His opinion of me is the only one that really matters.
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, help me to put away slander, malice, coarse words and explosive anger. Remind me to use positive words to communicate how I feel and how I want to be treated. Let me kindly tell the truth in love, even when it hurts.Thought for the Day ~ “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” Proverbs 25:11
