Category: don’t deny your emotions

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That dangerous weapon called anger…

It can happen so fast. Out of the blue, someone can blame us for their relational problems. ‘It’s all your fault that people don’t talk with me.’

It happened to me and it surprised me that they give me so much sway. In another, it horrified. They wanted me to take responsibility for their actions and anger. They wanted me to smooth things over.

I declined the job offer, so they instantly changed tactic – using shame. Maybe now I would fulfill their wishes if I felt they were the victim.

I had to walk away. I read the Bible. It said, ‘I have heard the insults.*’ I could rest, because anger isn’t the way to make friends.

(photo by Piet Bakker: pexels.com) *Zephaniah 2:8

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This WILD Joy.

I was in a dark place at age 19. I felt like a prisoner. But one afternoon as I searched a mountain for blackberries, I paused to look around. For some reason, my heart leapt with a wild kind of joy.

I immediately corrected myself. Such an irrational wild joy was simply a figment of my imagination. It was an escapist emotion to protect me from harsh realities.

But now, decades later, I discover that there are several Bible words for joy.* One is agalloasis – a WILD JOY.

God gave it to Jesus when he anointed him “with the oil of [wild] joy” (Hebrew 1:9). And Jesus gave it to his followers, as they “ate together with [wild] joy and sincere hearts” (Acts 2:46).

And he gives it to us, for we can stand “before his glorious presence without fault and with [wild] joy” Jude 1:24.

Oh, to embrace this in our hearts…

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com

* research from https://biblehub.com/greek/20.htm