Key points
- 1
1The safest place to pour out your rawest emotions — even shocking ones — is in honest prayer to God.
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2Acknowledge your anger rather than repressing it; it is a legitimate human emotion that must be named before it can be tamed.
“The safest place to pour out your emotions is in prayer to God”
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3Identify whether your anger is valid (a real injustice that may call you to change something) or invalid (a disproportionate or misdirected reaction).
A story from life
Preacher describes working with the local vice squad and making a documentary on human trafficking, recounting how the stories provoked valid anger
A story from life
Preacher tells of losing his temper in front of his children on the way to school and giving them a sermonette on self-control
A story from life
Preacher recounts throwing his demon-possessed lawnmower in the backyard while his kids watched, hours after preaching self-control to them
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4Restrain your immediate response — you will own your anger or your anger will own you.
Related passageProverbs 29:11; Proverbs 25:28; Psalm 4:4“anyone can become angry, that is easy. But to be angry with the right person at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way, that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy”
“You will own your anger or your anger will own you”
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5Do not hold on to anger; it was meant to be a visitor, not a resident — stop the cycle of storytelling and rumination.
“Anger was meant to be a visitor, not a resident”
A story from life
Preacher shares a conversation with his friend Bob, who challenged him to repent of storytelling about a recent personal injustice
- 6
6Admit your failures when you handle anger poorly; saying 'I am sorry' is a position of power, not weakness.
“bitterness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies”
A story from life
A friend whose daughter was murdered by her boyfriend describes writing down his anger, giving it to God, and burning the paper each anniversary to prevent bitterness
“Your anger, our anger can become our prison or our passport”
A story from life
Preacher recounts a road-rage encounter on Cermak Drive in Chicago and getting revenge on the box-truck driver
Illustration
Account of Jewish women resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, drawn from a book the preacher recently read, used to contextualize the Psalmist's rage
Application
Pastor Pat's challenge is concrete and personal: stop rehearsing the story of how you were wronged. Every time you replay that narrative — day after day — you are choosing to let anger take up permanent residence in your life, and it will eventually control you. Instead, he invites you to do what the psalmist did and bring your raw, unfiltered anger directly to God in prayer. Then, practically, let it go: write it down, give it to God, and burn it if you need to. Memorize Romans 8:28 and train yourself to reach for gratitude rather than grievance when the old story starts to play. And when you inevitably handle your anger badly, say the three most powerful words available to you — 'I am sorry.' Taming anger is not a one-time victory; it is a daily choice to let anger be a visitor, not a resident.
