Tuesday, April 17, 2007
I cannot sleep
I could not sleep tonight so I said a little prayer. Well a long one actually. First I thanked God for all I have been blessed with recently; The gradual return of the use of my arms, the decreased pain over a year ago, and how grateful I am that I no longer need duragesic patches. I asked God for guidance as I am doing closure with an ex tomorrow. I thanked God for helping me make wiser decisions and standing up for myself. I asked God to work with me on my anger... Once I finished with all that, I asked God to help me leave my heart open to loving and being loved and guide me to not shut it off due to past hurts.
Then I asked God to help me with forgiveness. I have a hard time with that in many ways. I remembered a sermon that was given last summer by Pastor Sandy regarding how many times we are to forgive. I looked it up again tonight and the answer is.
Matthew 18:21-22
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Well it looks like I have a few more to go. :-) So perhaps I am right where I am supposed to be since I have decided to get to work on it. Ironically while I was looking this up, I ran across something else... It was "How To Balance Righteous Anger". The place I found it was an audio file and I have no speakers right now... So I dug further and found a website that I felt had some good advice at bible.org .
What is the difference, then, between righteous anger and sinful anger? click on this title for full series..
We might suggest several distinctions. For one thing, righteous anger is always unselfish while sinful anger is selfish. It occurs when our desires, our needs or our ambitions are frustrated, when our demands are not met, when our expectations are not realized, when our well-being is threatened, when our self-esteem is attacked, or when we are embarrassed, belittled or inconvenienced. “Why doesn’t she do what I tell her to do?” “Why doesn’t he clean up his mess when he’s finished?” Those things inconvenience us.
A second difference is that righteous anger is always controlled while sinful anger is often uncontrolled. It causes us to say and do things we are sorry for later, things we never would have said or done had we been in control.
A third contrast is that righteous anger is directed toward sinful acts or unjust situations while sinful anger is often directed against people. God wants us to hate the sin but love the sinner, just as He does. And that means treating the sinner in kind and caring ways. Sinful anger lashes out against people.
A final distinction is that righteous anger has no malice or resentment, and seeks no revenge. In fact, it takes positive action to right wrongs and heal divisions and disagreements. Sinful anger, on the other hand, harbors bitterness and seeks retaliation. “He’s not going to get away with that.” So we make him pay. The angry tirade itself is designed to punish him, as are the cutting and sarcastic remarks, or the silent treatment that follows, or the malicious gossip we spread, or the way we try to alienate his friends from him. Sinful anger wants to hurt, even destroy.
God wants us to be angry, but over the right issues, at the right times and in the right way. He wants us to get rid of all sinful anger. If we are honest, we would probably admit that less than 2 percent of what we display is righteous anger, while the other 98 percent is sinful anger. It is that sinful anger we want to deal with in the remainder of this chapter … those sinful, selfish, spiteful feelings we express toward people who displease us.
I am glad I found this. It really helped. I Just wanted to share it! I think I can go to sleep now and face my 9 a.m. closure in a Christian way and strive towards not being defensive. Last week I had come to the realization I cannot change my ex, but I can change the way I am responding to it. Ironically, Sunday's sermon was pretty much in check with this realization I had earlier in the week.
Update:
Slept last night... Today went well.
2 comments:
That is excellent. Hey, lady, you're dealing with God - a nudge for me to do some soul- and - God searching. Here's sweet sleep to you - I have had two good night's, no superb night's sleep. Wow.
Hey there Gardenia, Thanks for the post. Yep, Yep... God is wonderful and God is good. Sometimes I wonder what God's divine plans are, but magically it always seems to fall in place.
I hope you get some sleep kiddo. How is the job coming?