Knights Becoming and a Lady in Waiting

Anger Anonymous: Step One

Okay, so I'm starting my new Anger Anonymous program.  I looked up the 12-steps on the AA site.  They are:

1.  Admit that I am powerless over [anger]- that my life has become unmanageable.

2.  Believe that a power greater than myself [God] can restore me to sanity [purity].

3.  Make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God [as He is shown in the Bible].

4.  Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.

5.  Admit to God, myself, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs.

6.  Be entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character [and to replace them with fruits of the Spirit].

7.  Humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings.

8.  Make a list of all people I have wronged in my anger and be willing to make amends to them all.

9.  Make direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure themselves or others.

10.  Continue to take personal inventory and when I am wrong, to promptly admit it.

11.  Seek, through active prayer, to improve my [relationship] with God and to pray for knowledge of His will and the power to carry out His will.

12.  As I have a spiritual re-awakening as the result of these steps, to carry this message to other [angry, sinning Christians] and to practice these principles in all my affairs.

The AA site makes allowances for variances in belief that I (and the Bible) do not, so I have made little changes, most of them in brackets.  But this is the path I am going to walk down.  Let's start with Step One.

1.  Admit that I am powerless over my anger and that my life has become unmanageable.

I have tried everything known to man to control my anger.  Counting, running, walking away, making lists, journaling, making amends.  None of it works.  I still go back to being angry. 

"I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."  (Romans 7:15)

" For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the eveil I do not want to do-- this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it."  (Romans 7:18b-20)

I am sinful.  The sin I struggle with most is my anger.  I cannot control it myself.  It is the thorn in my side that makes me stumble... again and again.  I cannot control it myself.  It truly has made my life unmanageable.  I dread my children acting up because I might lose my temper and snap at them.  I dread my husband doing one of his "whatever" responses, because I might fly off the handle.

I canNOT control my anger.

That is Step One.  But if I stopped there until I took Step Two, I would become so depressed that I might never take Step Two.  So I will leave you with this:

"But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.'  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."  (2 Corinthians 12:9)

I am angry.  But, oh, as I give this weakness over to God, I am prepared to see Him use it to His glory!  When I am weak-- and admit it!-- then I am strong.

Good for you!

3:28 PM, Aug. 6, 2006 .. Posted by GenesisFamily

How wonderful that you have recognized this sin area in your life and are taking steps to change this. God will truly bless you for your efforts. If I may to encourage you to immerse yourself in His word, the more of his word that is in you heart, the harder it is for anger to be there as well.
I look forward to reading more of your journey.
Toni

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5:48 PM, Aug. 7, 2006 .. Posted by flapjacks

hiya - I too have a problem with anger, in fact the Holy Spirit told me amazingly clearly when I was just a child that this was a danger for me. I'm grateful to him for that because otherwise I think I would make excuses for myself. I think there's a verse that says 'Man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires'... (found it: James 1:20).
It's only now that I'm not getting PMS every month (just often enough to remind me, LOL!) that I realise how much of my anger has been triggered by hormones. The rest is due to my attitudes and that's where I still have to watch out.
Alice