PreScriptures for Life

Forgiveness, the Antidote for Anger and Pain

 

Forgiveness, the Antidote for Anger and Pain

by Neil Elmer

When we have been hurt, abused, neglected, unjustly treated, or when someone has come against our will, we will be angry about the situation. Anger accumulates in us through our lifetime; it’s stored in our memories. When current events trigger these memories the emotion is expressed. Those who have hot tempers are people with a lot of stored up anger. See my article, The Destructive Nature of Anger for more information about anger.

This stored up anger creates stress in a person’s life. Stress affects physical and mental health and negatively affects relationships. Anger management teaches people how to control the emotions so that violent actions are avoided. However, the problem with anger management is the fact that the anger is still there—it hasn’t been resolved. And it’s there with all of the other unfavorable consequences.

Forgiveness is the only way to get free of anger. Many people are unsuccessful with forgiveness because they do not know the essential elements to forgiveness.

The essentials of forgiveness:

Forgiveness Is Letting Go

Forgiveness is letting go of the perpetrator that hurt or offended us by not holding them responsible for our pain anymore.

Forgiveness Must Be Unconditional

Forgiveness that brings peace and healing must be unconditional. That means there can be no expectation of receiving anything in return for forgiving. In other words, forgiveness that brings peace and healing must have no expectation of an apology, restitution, restoration of the relationship, need to feel or understand the pain, or any other condition no matter how small or seemingly insignificant.

 

Forgiveness Must Be Specific

 

We must forgive the person for each specific action because these incidences are stored in our memories. Our memories are where the anger resides. If the specific action was reoccurring, we need only to forgive once for that action. If there were varying types of actions against us, then we must forgive the person for each event. A “blanket forgiveness” will not bring peace and healing.

 

The Gospel of Matthew confirms this by quoting Jesus as stating: “But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:15)

 

When Jesus says “forgive men their sins,” he is stating that we need to forgive each sin, each event. This is absolutely crucial to receiving our own freedom!

 

Forgiveness Recognizes Our Limited View

 

Our perception of events may not be based on actual facts. It’s easy to draw false or inaccurate conclusions. This is especially true of childhood events. Therefore, we may need to forgive someone who is not actually guilty of the action in order for us to get free of the pain.

 

Forgiveness Doesn’t Require Meeting Our Offender

 

Facing our offender is not a requirement of forgiveness. In fact, meeting with our offender can be a detriment to forgiveness. Meeting with our offender usually has a hidden condition behind it that inhibits forgiveness. When conditions aren’t met, we are back in a mode of unforgiveness. Often it is best not to even tell our offender what w have done to forgive.

 

Forgiveness and Restoration

 

If you seek to restore the relationship or are wish to confront the person to stop future offenses, do this only after you are completely in peace (state of forgiveness). When you are in peace, you are less likely to cause your offender to be defensive and will usually get better results.

 

Peace is the Evidence of Forgiveness

 

Peace follows forgiveness. If you are not in complete peace while thinking about or being around your offender, then you are not done forgiving that person. It could be that you have set conditions or you still have more events to for which to forgive that person. Partial peace is an indication that you have successfully forgiven some and that you have further to go.

 

Forgiveness Continues

 

If your offender continues to hurt you after you have completely forgiven them, you may have to forgive again. The incredible miracle is that once you have forgiven many of your offenders, you will likely gain healing and be protected of future hurts. Ministry experience bears this out. Like being coated with Teflon, offenses seem to slide off with no negative effect.

 

Forgiveness is Obedience

 

God commands us to forgive because in his great love for us he wants the best for our lives. Unforgiveness is a sin. It is a barrier in all relationships including our relationship with God. Forgiveness and obedience to God always opens the door to many blessings.

 

Who Do We Forgive?

 

Certainly, we must forgive our offenders. People will often need to forgive a variety of incidences stemming from parents, a spouse, children, other relatives, teachers, bosses, co-workers, friends, government, courts, police, schools, businesses, rude drivers, and more.

 

Forgiving Ourselves

 

People tend to hold great bitterness and anger towards themselves for the dumb things they have done and for their limitations. Unmet expectations of how our life should be, is a significant source of anger and bitterness directed towards ourselves.

 

Forgiving God

 

Contrary to Scripture, many people believe that God causes bad things to happen. God gives people free will. But people rebel against God and choose to do bad things. Many people also blame God for not stopping bad things or for not protecting good people from bad things caused by others. Without going into a deep theological discussion on this subject, it is important to understand that God is not responsible for evil things. It is of utmost importance that we not blame God or hold unforgiveness toward God for what has happened in our lives and in our world.

 

We must recognize that we have blamed God in error.

 

A Powerful Prayer of Forgiveness

 

In obedience to God, I choose to forgive _____ for this sin/offense of ______ done against me.  Lord, don’t charge ________ with this sin or offense.

 

In the name of Jesus and by the power of His Blood, I cancel Satan’s power and authority over me in this issue of __________.

 

Heal and soften my heart, Lord.

 

Renew my mind by freeing me from _____________ (Anger, frustration, resentment, rage, or other forms of anger)

 

Bring me Your truth about this situation, Lord.  (Ask God to bring truth to the memory. You normally will feel peace. When thoughts come, you will have a different point of view to this event.

 

In addition to receiving forgiveness, this prayer renews our mind by changing what we believe about the events in our past (memories). We react and respond to events based on what we believe. When we have emotions attached to our beliefs, we will revisit the emotions of the past when our brain scans these memories for help in responding in the present situation. Now we will respond differently because of the renewing of our mind has transformed us (Romans 12:2).

 

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Neil Elmer is author of the book PreScriptures for Life: A Believer's Guide to Praying Scripture. His ministry helps people achieve peace in life and be set free from the bondages of sin.

 

 

PreScriptures for Life

$15.95 Harvest Day Books

The Destructive Nature of Anger

 

The Destructive Nature of Anger

by Neil Elmer, Healed Heart Ministry
www.HealedHeartMinistry.com

Anger destroys relationships and has significant consequences in a person’s mental, emotional, and physical health. Depending upon circumstances of the experience the emotion, anger, may manifest itself in varied intensity from simple frustration to full-blown rage. We use these words to describe anger at various levels of intensity: frustration, annoyance, bitterness, resentment, rage, retaliation, violence, murder, hate, temper tantrum, and more. Yet, even simple frustration over time can accumulate and lead to more intense emotion such as bitterness. A person with a temper (short fuse) is a person that has accumulated a lot of anger in their life. All have experienced anger, many times justifiably so. But if the anger persists, it will impact our life in a negative way.

Consequences of Anger

 

Angry children become rebellious:  Rebellious children are constantly at odds with parents, schools, and other authority figures. The conflicts with authority lead to outcomes that further infuriate the rebel which escalates the intensity of their anger and compounds life problems.

 

Angry people experience a lot of rejection and abandonment:  Anger may have started in childhood because of rejection and abandonment. Through life, the cycle continues as acquaintances and friends are repelled away by the anger and negativity. Broken friendships, wounded family relationships and loss of employment are consequences of anger.

 

Anger is linked to diseases:  Medical science research has linked anger to cancer, heart disease, strokes, and more. Anger is a major source of stress in people’s lives—stress is a major source of disease.

 

Anger is a source of mental health issues:  Anger is linked to depression. It is important to note that medical science has found that depression is often linked to heart disease.

 

Anger destroys a person’s sense of reality:  Some who have committed domestic battery have expressed that they blacked out from the anger and literally don’t remember committing the assault. Anger at any extreme can define who we are, and in some cases can lead to a life of delusion.

 

Anger leads to sin in God’s eyes:  It is God’s desire that our lives not have all of these consequences. While anger is a God-given emotion, we are not to commit sin in our anger and we are not to hold our anger into the next day.

 

Why People Become Angry People

 

When people hurt us, offend us, or stand in the way of our will and desires, we get angry. The experiences can represent real offences or we can perceive that we have been hurt. A child is not able to understand the broad view of events, so that this lack of perception opens up a child to more hurt than adults. But adults can be hurt also. These events are stored as memories. Many times these memories do not accurately represent the true nature of the event.

 

People readily accept the fact that our brains seek out and retrieve memories. For example, we know the answer is “4” when we see the math problem: “2 + 2.” Reciting a poem and recalling answers while in a spelling bee are similar examples. What we don’t readily perceive is that the brain retrieves many of life’s answers from memory. Regarding our emotions, we likewise don’t see our brain searching our memories for insight on how to respond when someone is rejecting us. Our past experiences guide us in the present even though, just like the math problem, we don’t perceive the process of recall. The emotion of anger and what we believe about rejection in the past events come forward to help us deal with the present situation. The potential problem is the belief and emotion of the past may not be helpful to us today.

 

Some childhood experiences that cause anger are as follows: physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect; rejection, abandonment, traumatic experiences, and more.

 

The emotions of jealously and envy can develop anger when a person doesn’t get what they desire. Failures can also lead to anger developing and growing in a person. This anger might be directed outward or it could be internalized—blaming one’s self for the failures. Anger can also be learned through parents and previous generations. Usually, if a child grows up in an angry atmosphere, they will be angry also. See http://www.acestudy.org/ for more information on adverse childhood experiences.

 

Anger Management

 

Anger management is a program to help people cope with their anger. The intention primarily is to reduce aggressive actions such as domestic violence. Many people are required courts as a requirement of their sentence to take these classes. Anger management may reduce violence, but it doesn’t solve the underlying problem. Because the anger is still present in a person they will still suffer from the other consequences of anger. Violence may be a temporary emotional release for a person. When violence is managed, other negative forms of release may be sought out such as drugs or alcohol. The real solution is not anger “management” but is getting free of our anger.

 

Get Free of Your Anger

 

The bad news is anger accumulates as a person experiences the bumps of life. The good news is that the imbedded anger in a person’s life can be eliminated. Forgiveness is the antidote for anger. Two important elements of forgiveness are as follows:

 

First, forgiveness must be totally unconditional. This means that you cannot expect anything in return forgiveness whether it be an apology, justice, restoration, or anything else. The purpose of forgiveness is to get free of the anger. Any expectation of restoring the relationship will usually sabotage getting free of anger. Forgiveness which leads to freedom, cannot have strings attached. Ironically, after true forgiveness occurs, the possibility of restoration increases.

 

Second, forgiveness must be specific to the offense. This means that if an offender has done a whole list of things, we must specifically forgive the entire list of issues.

 

For more information on forgiveness see the article: “Forgiveness, the Antidote for Anger."

 

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Neil Elmer is author of the book PreScriptures for Life: A Believer's Guide to Praying Scripture. His ministry helps people achieve peace in life and be set free from the bondages of sin and oppression.

 

 

PreScriptures for Life

$15.95 Harvest Day Books