Week 3 of Don’t Be A Hater

I found myself getting upset, frustrated and angry with a lot of miscellaneous objects this week.  The first that comes to mind is the shelf in my kitchen that holds that pots and pans.  The shelf isn’t broken, but for some reason collapses every few months.  As I was trying to fix it, I found my frustration grow into anger and next thing you know I was yelling and slamming a frying pan, much to my families surprise.  Immediately realizing that I was in the wrong, I apologized to them, went up to the bed room and gave myself a timeout.  All I kept thinking is where did that come from?
This weekend was week 3 of our anger series for students, “Don’t Be a Hater.” where we talked about identifying the source beneath our anger.  For example, my anger was at the shelf, but I was trying to do an easy fix instead of really examining the situation and ask, “How can I make this better?”  This was definitely a challenging topic to discuss with the students.  For them to find the sin or the source beneath the anger becomes difficult because it means identifying something intangible.  To get them to see what causes righteous anger and unrighteous anger in their day to day lives seems almost too convoluted.  It’s because it becomes a battle of me vs. them.  What we tried to communicate to the students is that a “me” focused world leads to discomfort, tension and unrighteous anger; however, a God focused world leads to peace, patience, and a righteous anger that leads to healthy change.
Next week our goal is to facilitate that change through a Reconciliation Service.  We want the students a chance to hand over their anger and their sin over to God.  If it’s righteous anger we want them to seek the Holy Spirit for strength to fight, if it’s unrighteous we want them to find the healing to move forward; either way we want them to put God back in the center of it all.