Hi, I’m Jenna Winston with Heartscaping Ministries and today I want to talk to you about how to deal with anger in a healthy way. The truth is God gave us the emotion of anger. He just told us not to sin in it. So what does that look like when you’re actually really angry to actually deal with that in a healthy way? The truth is that most people, especially Christians, are notorious for, “I choose to lay it down. I choose to forgive. I’m going to turn the other cheek. I’m not gonna pick it up. It’s not mine. I’m not going to carry ii” and they literally self-coach themselves into stuffing all of their anger. The fact is we do have a flesh and sometimes our natural internal response wants to go, “You, how dare you, how could you?” There’s things that we actually want to say that we don’t because we want to act Christ-like so we stuffed that stuff down and act what we have been taught is Christ-like which isn’t Christ-like at all. It’s actually stuffing all of your anger and making your heart sick.
So what does it look like to deal with that? Being able to do a proxy? Sometimes it’s a person. Sometimes it’s a pillow. Sometimes it’s a doll. It doesn’t matter. But being able to go to the Lord and say, “There’s just some ick in my heart that I need to get out.” God’s not afraid of your words and your anger. In fact, there’s been many times I’ve screamed and yelled at God and I’ve literally felt him behind me tapping my back, saying, “Get it out, sweetie, get it out.” This is an area of your heart that I’ve been wanting to invade for a long time. I just didn’t even know that God was that special, that He was that sweet and tender and loving, that He’s way more concerned about wanting to occupy that space in our heart, that the enemy has gotten with all of this anger.
So being able to, you know, in my [coaching] sessions, I’ll act as a proxy. I’ve been people’s husbands, wives, kids, daughters, pastors, leaders. I’ve been all the things. But sometimes you don’t always have the ability to do that. So I’ve told many people prop up a pillow in a chair, in a corner of a room and literally pretend that it’s that person because it’s the safest way to get your anger out without actually hurting someone. This person might not ever know most of this stuff because we actually don’t want to hurt them, but we’re angry. So propping that pillow up and actually getting real with what’s there. Like, what do you really want to say? I tell people in my [coaching] sessions all the time, this is where you don’t have to have a filter. You don’t have to act perfect and say all the right things. If you need to scream and yell, if you need to cry, whatever that is, but at least be real with what’s in there. because once you get that out, you’ll feel the break. When that break happens, the flooding love of God comes in.
A quick example that I want to use is years ago, I was at Azusa The Call and a bunch of people brought a boy to me that he was about 17 years old and he was full on manifesting the demonic. The thing is anger becomes a stronghold. You don’t have to be possessed in order for the demonic to prey on the strongholds because that’s their legal ground. We want to get rid of that. So anyways, this kid, the Lord showed me immediately the amount of anger and hatred that he had towards his father. And I said, “Hey, I’m going to stand here as if I’m your dad and I want you to say everything that you have ever wanted to say to him.” I don’t mean the whole, “it really hurt my feelings when…” I want you to get real with what’s in there. He said, “I don’t got nothing to say to him.” I said, “okay, well, that’s exactly what I’m talking about right there.” He’s like “I said, I promise you.” and he was like, “I ain’t got nothing to say.” Fine then, you can keep your demons. I go, I honestly was trusting the Lord in this. I know that’s a horrible thing to say, but trust me, I knew the shock value. But at that point he was choosing to stay partnered and keep his anger. So finally, as I turned around, like I was going to walk away. He goes, wait. And then he started in first, this flood of screaming and yelling and cussing and anger. In the spirit, I could just see the black coming out, but then the spirit shifted. Then it was, why didn’t you want me? Why didn’t you want me? Why didn’t you want to be there for me? Was I that bad? Then the flood of the loving Father, I will watch just this boy dropped to his knees and the love that was poured out from God over him, not from me, but from God directly, because all of a sudden the space where all this anger that had turned a bitterness had been sitting when nobody ever taught him, it’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to be angry.
How many of us have learned how to manage our anger and manage our behavior from our anger, but what if we actually could be free from it? And God actually wanted to occupy that space in our hearts. Proxy, I really believe, is one of the most powerful ways to deal with anger in a healthy way. Rejection hurt in healthy ways, without sinning, without hurting others, without becoming vengeful. I just really believe in the power of that. So if that helps you prop a pillow up, if you’ve been mad at your mother-in-law for 20 years, and there’s so many things you’d like to say to her prop up a pillow, pretend it’s her sitting there, say what you need to say and wait for God to bring this shift, because eventually you’re going to get to a place of “I’m exhausted” But Lord what’s your truth? Show me her through Your heart and it’ll change everything. I promise.
So let me pray for you today. Jesus, one of the hardest parts about our entire society and our world is people don’t say how they actually feel. They mold and shape to what they think is expected. Lord, I just pray that there would be a supernatural release, a supernatural grace of being able to get real with what’s really in the heart. What’s really there and bring it to light and give it to the Father to give it to you, Lord Jesus. And in that, having an exchange for You to bring Your love, Your truth, Your clarity, the seeds of fruit that grow in our lives. Lord, we just ask for a supernatural exchange, in Jesus name, amen.