A wise man once told me that 99% of anger comes from a lie. Righteous anger is very rare.
After learning about core lies, I have seen first hand in myself personally that when I get angry, I am usually believing a lie. For example, I found myself very angry at a woman who was mentoring me because she approached a couple of girls that I was discipling and asked them if they would be interested in doing a bible study with her (this was a long time ago, so my memory might not be getting the circumstances exactly as they were, but it was something like this). I realize now that this is petty, but at the time, I was furious! I felt like she was going behind my back. She was trying to steal "my" girls. She was a bad bad woman. I called up aforementioned wise man and vented my obviously righteous anger. After spouting my frustrations, he calmly told me the above "statistic." I thought he wasn't listening. Oh, he was.
Turns out, I was believing a lie - the lie that I wasn't good enough. When she offered to have a bible study with "my" girls, I took it as a personal attack on my ability to be a good bible study facilitator (writing this now almost makes me laugh at how silly this is). She was blocking my goal - the goal that I had to be good enough...I had to be perfect (more on goals later).
Emotions have such power to rule over us if we do not take them captive to the truth. The reason I am having you write down your emotional reactions to things is so that you can start to process what is really behind that reaction. Here is the breakdown of why we experience the emotions we do:
Anger = Blocked Goal
Anxiety = Uncertain Goal
Depression/Sense of Inadequacy = Impossible Goal
Fear = Uncertain Goal
Update: A reader asked, "Can you explain this a bit more? Maybe I'm just slow, but does a statement like Depression = Impossible goals mean, a- If you are depressed, you tend to set impossible goals or b - Depression results from setting impossible goals?"
Great question! It means that you have set for yourself an impossible goal to achieve - you may not even know what that goal is, which is why we are going to be "talking" about goals more on Tuesday. Start thinking about what your impossible goal may be.
Tuesday we will look at the goals we choose because of the lie we are believing. In the meantime, start to think about what unconscious goals you may have made because of your lie/lies. Try journaling like this:
Angry -Scenerio -Ask God to show you belief behind emotion. What goal?
Anxiety/Fear
Depression
I'm praying for you!
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One more thing - I'm also writing at Is This Modest today - Do You Have A Modest Mouth?
13 comments:
wow, your wise man's statistic IS pretty sobering. I have also found a lot of my anger in the past has come from being too judgmental or guessing what someone's motives are (both leading to LIES that we tell ourselves or scenarios we totally MAKE UP in our own mind)!
Good series here - thank you!
God bless.
Women can be "catty" and subtly have hidden agendas.
God's given me a radar for "some" in certain situations as to what to say or not to say when around them. The Bible talks about not trusting your soul to any man.
There has to be a balance in our lives when it comes to sharing and being vulnerable before others.
Great post!
Isn't it amazing how our minds work? And how our body is always trying to protect us. And yet, sometimes we just need to be vulnerable so that the Lord can reveal His truths to us.
I'm dealing with an anger issue towards another person right now, so it will be interesting to see what comes of this weekend.
This is so, so true. I know for myself that when I am angry is always comes back to my need to be in control, to have things go as I had hoped. Control issues play a very, very large part in who I am and things that I have or must continually deal with. That I have to be in control, and not letting God be the one in control, is the root of every single core lie in my life. I love this series.
Can you explain this a bit more? Maybe I'm just slow, but does a statement like Depression = Impossible goals mean
a- If you are depressed, you tend to set impossible goals
or
b - Depression results from setting impossible goals
Thank you for shedding light on anger and lies. Satan is so crafty and easily entangles us.
good stuff!
Precious womanhood! You are amazing. You just had sweet Caroline!
Awesome series you have begun and so very needed. Satan is indeed crafty as Kelli said.
Not good enough rang with a loud gong! I must pull that journal out and get busy!
Blessings all over you and your sweet family!
I am going to have to print these off and truly dig into them more! I didn't mean to comment because I just got up for a sec to check on one of our dogs, but I wanted to tell you I'm really looking forward to the next posts!
Reading this I feel like I have a cloud before, which is thinning out gradually, helping me to see more clearly...
Sarah,
This "series" is excellently done and very pertinent to Christian women today.
Will admit, it seems like since you started this one, my core lie has reared its ugly head with full force - placing me back in "that cycle". Thanks for the timeliness.
Don't forget to rest when those little ones are ... even if it means longer "pauses" between posts.
Blessings
This stuff is all new to me and it's wonderful! I'm still mulling all of it over, but I know it's leading to revealing some of my core lies. I am looking forward to more Sarah Mae!
Conny hits the nail on the head. We make assumptions about others and why they do or do not do and/or say a thing and then the lie we create births anger. A wise man once said to me ..."when you get angry,anxious,fearful look the Lord and ask Him is it me Lord?". Until we learn to examine ourselves and let the Lord remove these lies the struggles we've known will continue. This is a awesome series and I am grateful to have found it, thank you.
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