Identifying Sinful Anger (part 3)

How do I know if my anger is right or wrong? It depends upon why I am angry and how I express it. Part 1 dealt with wrong motives for anger. Part 2 dealt with one wrong expression of anger, “blowing-up.” Now consider the opposite approach of “bottling-up” anger.

The “bottle-up” approach is also a sinful expression of anger. On the outside you seem to handle it well, but on the inside you are boiling mad. You might be proud of yourself for keeping it together because you really want to explode. So you hold it in, and anger simmers beneath the surface. While doing less immediate damage to those around you, keeping internalized anger alive in you is unhealthy. When you don’t deal with it, anger simply festers, decays, turns to bitterness, resentment, and eventually expresses itself elsewhere.

This is why Ephesians 4:26 says: “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.” Rather than blowing up or bottling it up, the principle is to deal with it as soon as possible. Dr. Todd Neller pointed me to some research about sleep and long-term memory. The research found that during sleep, memories get consolidated and stored for the longer haul in the neocortex. That transfer of memories from short to long-term storage takes place during slow-wave and REM sleep. Once there memories can last up to a lifetime. So there is some scientifically proven benefit to getting rid of anger before sleep. Letting anger smolder, nursing it along, harboring the hurt is deadly. As someone said: "You won't sleep anger off, you will sleep it in."

So if blowing-up and bottling up are wrong expressions of anger, what should you do with those emotions and hurt feelings? Part 4 will deal with getting rid of anger.