Advice and Controling emotions, part 2

How to read advice…I have read a lot of materials by different authors on the subject of marriage and parenting that have somewhat offended my sensibilities but also challenged my thinking. I like reading with the goal being what wisdom can I take away and apply to my life. I want advice from someone who is confident AND successful in their approaches and bases everything on the Bible. Some people respond better to a soft, gentle writing style and others enjoy a “2X4” approach. I personally like things sugar coated because it makes me feel better than someone bluntly pointing out my faults and calling me on it. Honestly, the latter makes me feel defensive initially, but then prompts me to want to change things because I feel convicted. Sugar coating doesn’t do that for me.

Controlling your emotions and modeling through our mistakes…here is an excerpt from Elizabeth’s book which is interesting and definitely something that I am “chewing on”:

We are under a divine mandate to train our children. So far, I’ve written an entire book about how to do this and now I’m close to the end and it’s time to face up to the biggest challenge of all – training ourselves. We can try to follow all the discipline and Tomato Staking rules, watch for character problems, ambush, outlast, lecture, and so on and so forth, but if we are hypocrites ourselves in the way we live and in our own attitudes, we will eventually have serious problems with our children, probably sooner than later. We may get outward obedience, but we will lose our children’s hearts, and we may indeed permanently hinder their relationship with Christ. So stop now and clean up your act, so that you can be the mom you want to be, leading your beloved children to godliness of both action and heart, and ultimately to a life of love and devotion to God.

Elizabeth: I changed my perspective. I decided to view my irritability as an extremely serious sin, not just an unfortunate personality flaw. I decided to view losing my temper as totally unacceptable and completely forbidden. Instead of seeking to “improve”, I determined to “quit”. I changed to viewing anger as poison, not just as a small bothersome bad habit. Big difference.

Henceforth, I began to ponder this "poison" many times a day and prepare for it, instead of waiting until a frustrating incident came along, producing its impulsive response. I determined that anger or irritation was NOT AN OPTION, period. My resolve was to be alert and ready, not passively doing nothing until sin was knocking at the door. I purposed that despite anything that might occur, I'd find some way to maintain control. I WOULD NOT become angry!

You must cultivate and ponder a HATRED for anger continually, vigilantly watch for it and be prepared at the very first inner sign, to overcome evil with good by replacing angry reactions with calmness and godly, right thoughts.

Therefore, putting aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.
- I Peter 2:1-3

Is Elizabeth actually saying that we can go through our lives not getting angry and reacting to things?? Is this possible?? Can we be a model to our children of emotional control at all times without continually blowing it and thus eliminating the need to teach them through our own handling of our mistakes? (By the way, I am a firm believer that if we do mess up, we need to apologize and learn from our mistakes so as not to continually repeat them. If we are continually repeating them and continually apologizing, then perhaps we really don’t believe it is important enough or a priority to change them in the first place.)

Consider this, if you were in prison and any sort of hot headed, angry response got you beat to a pulp would you be able to control yourself? If you were in a job where your boss was a complete jerk but mouthing off to him or reacting to him with even negative body language would get you fired and black listed in your profession would you be able to control yourself?

Also, what does the Bible say about this? There are many, many passages, particularly in proverbs, about how to react to situations, often comparing wisdom to keeping one’s mouth shut and responding in a way that doesn’t produce strife. In James, we are told to be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. Would the Lord ask us to do this if we weren’t able to?

What does Paul say in his writings? Does he talk about getting upset with people and apologizing? Does he express his emotions in a negative way and then repent of them? Did he do as Elizabeth implied and have a spirit of joy in all things that he did and all situations that he found himself in? I need to review all that Paul wrote to answer this question for myself.

I am not implying that we are able to “not sin”. Our very nature is to struggle against our flesh. Is it possible in our struggle that we can ACT as God asks us to, even though we wrestle with taking our thoughts captive and turning them around so they don’t become something ugly on the outside? Thank goodness for God’s grace and mercy when we don’t do this. I absolutely believe that we teach our children through our actions. We apologize and repent of our mistakes. We model forgiveness. We teach about God’s love, grace, and mercy by showing it. We show our willingness to listen to the Holy Spirit’s prompting about the areas that we need to address in our lives and then make the changes.

I am a person who has a tendency to react in frustration and anger, Phil has been helping me by calling me on it. If I start to spiral downhill (and it is so obvious when I do!!), he reminds me to change my thinking. This has been a tremendous help. I get lots of practice stopping a “bad attitude” in its tracts by putting a smile on my face, taking a deep breath, giving myself a little talk, and thinking about the bright side and being grateful.

On a side note, the Lord is really leading me in the direction of “Joy in the home” and having the “heart of my children”. Things just keep cropping up on this subject matter. I am excited to see what the Lord has in store for me.