Pure and Angry
Published June 20, 2011 | 
It is normal to start feeling anger and irritation once you set your acting out behaviors aside. Now that you aren’t medicating your feelings, they will come to the surface. The first, and easiest emotion to identify with, especially for men, is anger. We easily recognize this one.
In counseling, I learned that anger is always a secondary emotion. It is a surface-level emotional response to a deeper feeling. The same counselor gave me an acrostic that helps me dig underneath my anger. It is GIFT, which stands for Guilt, Inferiority, Fear or Trauma. These are big buckets that help me categorize what I am feeling and share it with my accountability team and when possible with my wife.
For me, the first three are the usual suspects (guilt, inferiority, fear). Once I began digging into those more deeply and regularly, I learned some of the nuances of my emotions (I have been so ignorant of this part of my soul for most of my life). For instance, inferiority is more accurately feeling invalidated as a man for some reason. That is an enormous trigger for me – it makes me angry and can quickly put me on the dreaded “autopilot” to acting out with masturbation or pornography.
Anger at God
Published February 2, 2009 | In at risk teen ministry, nothing ever goes as planned. Bible studies take 180’s and distractions are a constant factor. Often God will give me a sentence that will shock my girls into complete attention. Recently it’s been, “If you’re mad at God then yell at him. He already knows you are anyways!†Jaws drop to the floor at the seemingly irreverent statement coming from the Bible Study Lady. Let me firmly say, we aren’t so different. In our minds it’s decided we have no right, we’ve complained too many times, or somehow we deserve it.
Being a wife of a recovering sex addict it is vital I know the permission God gives me to express where my heart truly stands without a barrage of advice. Without ever facing my feelings of abandonment, worthlessness, indignation, injustice, betrayal, and anger I obliterate my own chances of survival in my marriage. These questions and resentments will indeed block my own relationship with Christ if not dealt with emotionally. It does not matter if I have all the right answers if I am unwilling to face my pain and embitterment. This opportunity to vent opens a doorway of communication in deeper intimacy with our Abba. How can you grow in your relationship if you are not allowed to ask the deep groanings of your heart?
What I find so encouraging in my journey is that God’s own Word is filled with questioning people! (Few Examples: Psalms 42:10-11, Lamentations 3:19-20, Habbukuk 1, etc.) God is not threatened by our pain or blame. In fact He encourages the expression and condemns white washed tombs. Can you fathom God loves you so much that He is willing to face your accusations again and again in order to reconcile that relationship? Beloved, you cannot be an ambassador/representative of reconciliation unless you’ve been reconciled yourself! (2 Corinthians 5:18-20) If you are unable to call out to God in your despair, your relationships is one sided. It will go no further by the impassible wall. Open that door child of God; He stands at it knocking to be let into the deepest wounds of your heart.
The freedom to question is just the start. The answers you receive are often surprising. This freedom has deepened my roots and strengthened my intimacy with Jesus. God calls us where we are and now we have to be honest with where that truly is.
The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. ~Psalm 145:18
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