Is anger hidden within you

I was praying with a lady one day and I put my hand on her head and she came all to pieces and with an angry response she said, “You don’t touch my hair!” At that time, I had no idea, but it is a classic example of unresolved anger. In this lady’s past when she was a little girl she was sexually abused and her abuser would stroke her hair and this produced a tension point that was instantly activated when you touched her hair. A “pet peeve” was developed in her life. The hurt and guilt of that experience lived on in her memory. Hurtful events in our past may be forgotten and we think they have no effect upon us. THIS IS NOT TRUE, that pet peeve will be activated when any similar situation occurs. Sometimes it is an odor or a loud voice or just walking up a set of stairs. As you read the following testimonies, examine your heart and actions and ask yourself, what causes me to be irritated and impatient with others or my self?

Read the following testimony: The first abuse I remember was age 5. I have always had a handful of "photo" memories in my mind but one day as an adult walking through a store I had a flash back to the past. As I passed a man in the store his body odor was very familiar and unnerving to me, I became agitated and depressed almost immediately. I have ran across this odor a handful of times before I began to walk through my abuse issues and each time I would become agitated and depressed. After I did the work on these issues and chose to forgive I received freedom. Although I have ran across this odor again, the agitation and depression does not follow! God has given me freedom from that painful memory and I am no longer chained to those old feelings and reactions. Today it's just the thought 'there's that odor" when I smell it, but it doesn’t hold any power over me today. It simply is what it is.

Read the following testimony: In March 1995, we had a house fire and a loved one was trapped inside, everyone was breaking windows trying to get her out. I remember all the screaming and yelling to get her out of there. She died in the fire. I was a Chef and a line cook and when the grill would flame up, I would flash back to that painful experience, with all the screaming and yelling. It got so bad; I even changed occupations, now the Lord has healed me!

Read the following testimony: I was driving down the road and the news on the radio was talking about something a liberal senator had said that I thought was treason and I thought, “Somebody needs to shoot him.” Immediately my spirit was checked and I said, “Lord, where did that come from that was murder!” At that moment God revealed to me a situation that happened over forty years ago, and I had said I was going to kill a man for messing with my toolbox, my father rebuked me and said, “That is a little extreme over a toolbox isn’t it?” But, at that moment murder had come into my heart and I didn’t even know it. That thought would be “triggered” when I saw something unjust, until my Lord exposed it and set me free, only by His blood may men get free!

How many of us have walls of protection built around us? Walls that we have built to protect us from the pain, a defense mechanism built out of fear, anger and rage, when we declare the words “I will never be hurt again!” and brick by brick the wall gets higher until it blocks you from God, your loved ones and you lose the ability to give love and to receive love. Each time you start to reveal who you really are, fear says you will be hurt again! The enemy will lie causing you to hold onto hurts, wounds, bitterness and unforgiveness, and to make you feel justified, but that is a LIE that will keep you in darkness. Then our own walls of protection that we have built, our own security, filled with pride and self-reliance not love, will surround us.

God wants to reveal/expose our hearts so that we might deal with the roots HE exposes to clean us up so we may be pure and righteous before HIM. God wants to deliver us from our past hurts, wounds, and scars. If God reveals our hearts and we do nothing about it (don’t deal with it) we are rejecting His grace. We have to get to the root of the problem, deal with the issue at hand, confess our faults to one another (BE TRANSPARENT) so that we may be healed. Doesn’t James 5 say that? When the Holy Spirit reveals and or exposes our hearts it is for us to be OVERCOMERS. Holy implies the nature of Him and trouble comes to expose roots down in our hearts. Exposing our hearts to things not pleasing in God’s sight and the word tell us to REPENT! (Repentance is a choice to turn away and go in God’s direction)

I recall a lady; her pet peeve was you don’t touch my food. As a little girl, living in poverty, her father would take food from her plate and as an adult she would eat a lot and take her arms and cover her plate, like she was protecting herself.

What is that pet peeve of yours? Can you recall a childhood situation that deeply hurt you? _________________________________________________________________

Have you declared, “I will never be hurt again!” ___________________________

If you answered “yes”, you have a wall and unresolved anger. Anger when we throw things is easy to see, but we can cover it up and it becomes hidden, we can just fume inside and be justified in our anger and never see it as a sin. The defense mechanism used as a small child to protect you is set to destroy you as an adult because it walls you in.

Unresolved anger produces a judgmental spirit and an angry response. We need to identify these past experiences and resolve them.

Now let’s look into our own hearts! A person will manifest many evidences of sinful responses but will refuse to admit that they come from unresolved anger. A person who has a spirit of anger will usually demonstrate one or more of the following characteristics. Do you have some of the following symptoms?

3. Raised voice: the tone will communicate impatience and harshness in a loud voice

5. Not speaking: when offended as evidenced by silence, no eye contact or avoidance

6. Contention: will challenge the opinions, ideals and instructions of authority, and likes to argue

7. Hurtful words: will use harsh, unkind and rudeness with their actions with others

8. Struggles with lust: anger is closely related to lust, the Greek word for anger is “orge”, where we get the word “orgy”, which is unrestrained passion.

Do you have some of the above symptoms in your life? Are these symptoms sin?

Ephesians 4:26 “Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath”

Colossians 3:8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.

Proverbs 19:11 The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, and his glory is to overlook a transgression.

No attitude is more Godly than to forgive or to overlook a wrong done to us either past, present or future. Does this not humble us? We would have to be humble to overlook or forgive a hurt wouldn’t we? We would be humble or justified in our actions. To be justified (though maybe rightly so according to our FLESH) we hold onto the very thing we need to let go of. It is our choice, our free will given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ. We do not strive to achieve, but we strive to be set free from whatever is keeping us from achieving. Gods’ word sets us free. These scriptures prick our hearts in conviction, not condemnation. If we have not been loved as God created us according to His word, our ability to receive and give love is stunted greatly. Once we begin to receive God’s love, accept His grace and mercy for ourselves, we begin to learn how to forgive and love others. People will fail you; they will hurt and wound you. God wants to heal the wounds and scars you have, tear down the walls, remove the heavy load and bring you to a place of rest. For this to happen, let’s go on with an evaluation of our heart. AN ANGRY PERSON WILL:

James 1:12-15 Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

Here is another testimony that will help expose the pain of the past: I have been struggling and anger keeps popping up everywhere. I asked the Lord, where did I lose you? My walk has not been what it used to be and I miss it, but I noticed it started when my brother passed away three years ago. I thought I had dealt with anger over a year ago and now you keep showing me it is still there. (It is like layers on an onion, it is a “process” and we can only deal with one layer at a time) I prayed this for almost two months. One day the Lord spoke to me and said one word, “bitterness”. I thought, “bitterness, what, I don’t even know what that means and what could I be bitter about? Over the course of two months the Lord gently showed me something each day until I could see. One day I got so sick of the subtle findings, I got so mad that I pulled out the bible and the concordance. I looked up 5 scriptures concerning bitterness. I looked up the meaning of the word bitterness in the concordance.

Hebrew meaning: is angry or heavy

Greek meaning: is to press down or to pack

Job 41:25, Proverbs 14:10, Isaiah 38:15, Acts 8:23 and Hebrews 12:15

See I was a “stuffer” someone who pushes feelings down so deep, they will never come to the surface. Inner pain pressed or packed down will certainly cause you to be poisoned with bitterness and be bound. I had no idea, the enemy was so sly and cunning, it had been three years and I was full of that poison. I knew I always had inner pain from my childhood abuse, but refused to acknowledge it. That defense mechanism that I had learned as a child was here to destroy me as an adult. When I read these scriptures and realized the meaning of bitterness I wailed. My heart was so convicted by God. God revealed to me that I was angry with Him, and for so long I could not acknowledge that, because we are not supposed to be mad a God are we? Now that it has been revealed by God and I recognize it. I must call it what it is, sin. Do I want sin in my life? Do I want to continue on this bitter journey or do I want to be set free? The choice is mine. The ball is in my court. I thought I was over my biggest hurdle and I was not even close enough to jump yet. God’s time and God’s will as I submitted myself to Him in obedience. It is now 2008 and I have been set free from that bondage, PRAISE GOD!

Has the Holy Spirit revealed that resentment we call a pet peeve and that hidden anger that is within you? Search your heart, make that list and forgive!

Prayer for Deliverance: Lord I see my pet peeve, my resentment, my anger, that wall that I let the enemy build in me. Lord I choose to forgive those that have caused me great pain. Lord I repent of all my judgments that have bound me to these resentments. These pet peeves, I declare these strongholds in my mind a lie, and I plead the blood and the finished works of Calvary over my life. Now I can say, I waited patiently for the Lord and He heard my cry, He brought me up out of this pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, He has torn down this wall that I can love again. He has set my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm and He has put a new song in my heart, a song of praise to my God! AMEN!