Not again! You lost it, are furious, and feel like a total failure. You yelled, slammed the door, or hit the table. Then the shame and guilt set in. “These are my precious children. What am I thinking? What can I do?” There is hope! In this 5-day study, you will learn how to become a more patient parent as you overcome your anger.
The Disciple-Making Parent
Day 1
Scripture: James 4:1-2
Day 1: Thinking Beneath the Surface of Anger
I was so frustrated I wanted to scream. The kitchen sink was leaking again. Pretending to be a handyman, I had dutifully gathered a few tools and begun to tinker with the “never-leak” facet. After working on it for an hour, it was not leaking less but more. Frustrated, I angrily hit the spigot. What had been a small leak sprayed all over me! My frustration and anger had created a fountain.
I turned around to see four sets of saucer eyes watching me warily. My dear, sweet children had just watched their father have an adult temper tantrum. Repentant, I apologized to my children and said, “That is how the Lord disciplines your dad. Now, I have to pay a plumber a lot of money.” The tension broke, and they all smiled. They thought it was funny that the Lord would discipline Dad!
Anger is a common issue in the home. In fact, anger is a common issue in the Bible. Yet, anger in the home can be a hidden sin. We rarely talk about it at church or in our small groups.
More concerning than frustration at a faucet is anger toward our children. Yelling and screaming can be daily realities for parents. You get upset, slam the cabinet, or throw your purse. Or anger can slowly simmer in your head for days. Then the shame and guilt set in. “These are my precious children. What am I thinking? What can I do?”
There is hope!
We’ll start this devotional by thinking clearly about our own anger. Though we feel guilt and shame afterward, we can justify our anger. After all, we think, “I know that not all anger is sinful. Jesus was angry. I think my anger was righteous.”
While not all anger is sinful, it is uniquely positioned to cause us to sin. Jesus’ sinless anger was motivated by compassion and God’s glory. My anger is rarely thoughtful and almost always motivated by my own comfort.
In James 4:1-2 God teaches us where this anger comes from. It comes from the desires that battle within us. No one can make me angry, meaning when I am experiencing anger, I need to look more deeply at the cause within my heart.
That’s exactly why unraveling my anger and growing in patience can be so baffling. While certain sinful desires lead to anger, there can also be good desires that cause us to get upset. “My daughter should have obeyed me.” “My son should have done his homework.” Those desires for obedience and responsibility are good desires. As parents, God wants us to train our children to be obedient and self-controlled.
Dr. David Powlison said, “It’s not the desire but the status of the desire.” He means that, at that moment, I am placing the good desire for my child’s obedience above my desire to please the Lord and control myself. Wanting my child to obey is not wrong. But it cannot be more important than my self-control.
As we start this five-day journey together, let’s dig deeper to see the desires behind the upset.
Prayer:
Father, I confess that I have too often lost my temper with my precious children. I feel guilty and ashamed. But I believe in the power of Jesus to forgive and the power of the Spirit to change. Thank you for the insights from this study. Forgive the times I have justified my anger in the past. Help me think more deeply about the desires that are driving my anger and so become a more patient parent. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Day 2
Scriptures: Matthew 5:21-22, James 1:19-20, Proverbs 29:11
Day 2: Anger is Your Foe
You feel terrible. You’ve blown it again. You woke up with the best intentions this morning, but you’ve already lost it with your children, and the morning isn’t even over.
“What is wrong with me?” you think.
It is easy for Christians to get caught up in this sin-confess-sin-confess cycle. You know something is wrong and immediately confess it to the Lord afterward. But nothing seems to change.
This is not the way that God intends it. By the power of the Spirit, we can change. We can become more patient, defeating anger.
One thing that might be missing from our perspective is seeing anger as a deadly foe to fight and kill.
In this lesson, we will pull back the cesspool cover of our hearts and look at how horrible anger is. The goal is not to depress you. Rather, the hope is for you to look this monster in the eye, seeing it the way God sees it so that you resolve to fight it.
What does Scripture teach about anger?
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expands and deepens the commandment prohibiting murder. “Thou shalt not murder” not only prohibits murder but sinful anger as well. That rage is actually miniature murder. It is the same sin family. And because of that, it is worthy of God’s judgment.
This fact alone causes us to run to Jesus for the forgiveness of sin he provides on the cross. Realizing sinful anger is baby murder toward my child will stop me in my tracks. I need to get serious about this sin!
Second, in the book of James, God tells us that sinful anger does not accomplish what we want to accomplish. That’s often a reason we get upset at our children, right?
They are disobeying or fighting with their siblings. You want it to stop, so you raise your voice. And they stop. At that moment, you are tempted to think anger works. The truth is, while it might stop the chaos in the moment, it is also sowing seeds of discord and disrespect. Our sinfulness does not accomplish the righteousness that God desires.
Third, my sinful anger makes me a fool. That’s pretty harsh, but it is precisely what Proverbs says. While the world’s psychology would tell us that it is good to vent our anger, God says the exact opposite. When we vent our anger, we are foolish. A wise parent can keep themselves under control.
Those three truths are just a few biblical reasons that anger is a deadly foe to fight. But don’t leave this lesson discouraged. For every one look at our sin, we need to take ten looks at the love and forgiveness of Christ. In addition, you can put sin to death by the power of the Spirit. He can and will strengthen us to fight the monster of sinful anger.
Prayer:
O Father, I have felt guilt and shame about this part of my life for too long. But I have never focused my attention on it as a deadly cancer to destroy. It has injured my precious children, and I desire to repent. From this day forward, may I aggressively fight it. By the power of your Spirit, give me strength to overcome this foe. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Day 3
Scriptures: Ephesians 4:26, Mark 3:1-5, 1 Corinthians 10:13
Day 3: Anger as Your Friend
As discussed yesterday, getting caught up in the sin-confess-sin-confess cycle is easy. We blow up at our children. Feel shame and guilt. Apologize and promise to do better. But then, in a few days, the same thing happens again.
“What am I missing?” you ask yourself. Yesterday we looked at our need to understand anger as our foe. As strange as it may sound, you may also be missing the understanding that anger can actually be a friend.
According to Dr. David Powlison, anger is “an active stance you take to oppose something you assess as important and wrong.”
Anger, then, is like the red light on a car dashboard. It is an indicator that something is important and wrong. Rather than just looking at the light, we must address the engine problem.
Let’s be clear. Our goal of becoming a patient parent does not mean we are emotionless, drifting along in some New Age detached state. If we hear our child tell us a defiant “No,” and it doesn’t cause some sort of reaction, that is a deficiency on our part. Or the husband who sits passively while his son disrespects his mother must also repent.
The anger we feel in the moment can help us see a problem and motivate us to act. As we evaluate our parenting, we must ask, “What problem is this anger pointing me to? What do I think is important and wrong?” While we are called to control the anger’s expression, we can also channel the anger to come up with a plan to solve the problem.
You need to begin asking yourself what you will do to address the problem when it happens the next time. You know that it will happen again, right? The disobedience, sibling disagreement, or not having the homework ready will happen again! Children are children, after all.
After controlling its sinful expression, let that anger motivate you to attack the problem. This “red light” tells us something needs to change in our hearts, in our kids, or in our home environment.
The first area that God wants me to work on is my own heart. You and I can develop patience no matter what another person does. We see this example in Jesus when, wrongly accused and beaten, he bore it patiently. We are responsible for our actions and reactions. No one, not even our child, can make us sin.
As we realize that God is actively working to stretch our spiritual muscles and make us more patient, we will wake up and pray against the temptation of losing our temper. We will meditate on Scriptures that cause us to be more patient. And we will recognize the moment of pre-anger for what it is: a temptation. God promises that he will not give us a temptation beyond what we can bear. And with every temptation, there is a way out.
Prayer:
O Father, I have felt guilty about this part of my life for too long. But I have never focused my attention on it as a deadly cancer to destroy. It has injured my precious children, and I desire to repent. From this day forward, may I aggressively fight it. By the power of your Spirit, give me strength to overcome this foe. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Day 4
Scriptures: Genesis 1:26-28, Proverbs 21:5, Proverbs 29:19
Day 4: Anger Motivates You to Address the Problem
In yesterday’s devotional, we saw that anger, while needing to be controlled, is also like the red light on the dashboard. It is an indicator that something is wrong and needs to be addressed; just as the red light motivates you to think about your car’s engine, anger should cause you to step back and assess the situation in your family.
Then anger should motivate you to make a plan for your heart, your children, or your environment. Yesterday’s and tomorrow’s devotionals focus on plans for our own hearts. But today, we think very briefly about making plans for our parenting.
Being made in God’s image means that we are like him. One way we reflect his image is by ruling our areas of influence well. In Genesis, God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. He also commands them to have dominion and subdue the earth. Do you see the connection? God says, “Be fruitful and rule well.”
You are created to rule! You have the privilege of actually governing your little family under God’s care. He has delegated that to you. But you aren’t fully developed as a leader. He is going to use family circumstances to grow you in wisdom. Frustrations in the home should drive you back to him so that you can be a more skillful shepherd.
Though we cannot go into detail here, consider the following questions to help you grow in leadership wisdom.
Am I taking time to think about the parenting challenges I am facing? So many times, we rush from upset to upset without reflecting on what caused the previous upset. In prayer, review what triggered the last incident.
Have I taken the time to create a plan? The issue you just faced that caused your anger will happen again. What is your plan? Will you give out a consequence? Will you change the environment? What will you do differently? Reflection should lead to a plan.
Am I using actions instead of words? Too often, parents of young children use too many words and not enough action. When we are driving an automobile, what causes us to slow down? Is it a lecture from a police officer or the consequence of a speeding ticket? Like us, our children respond to consequences. Preplanned consequences are much more effective than corrective words with young children.
Am I giving my children too much freedom? Our children come to us in a state of total dependency. The goal is to move them from dependence to independence over time. But notice the phrase over time. We don’t allow our five-year-old to drive a car. But we don’t want to chauffeur around our 25-year-old. In this gradual move from structure to freedom, giving our children more freedom than they can handle is possible. Dialing back some of the freedom we have given young children may prevent some of our problems.
Those are just a few short principles to help you grow as a wise leader. God is developing you—yes you! He is using these little children to mature and train you. Don’t take this training experience lightly!
Prayer:
Father, thank you for how you rule this world, even amidst our sin. You are the perfect king. What a privilege you have delegated some of that authority to me as I rule over my little household. But I need your wisdom in this. Teach me wisdom principles that will make my home a loving, joyful, and orderly place. Help me learn from each situation where I become upset to be a better shepherd. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Day 5
Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 13:4-6, Exodus 34:6
Day 5: Becoming Patient
Love is patient and kind…
So begins the famous love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. To be a patient and kind parent is to love our children.
But what exactly does it mean to be patient?
The word translated patient literally means to put one’s anger or wrath far away. Older translations of the Bible used the word long-suffering. Patience bears with a provocation and is not quick to respond.
Of course, we can see the greatest personification of patience in Jesus. When we study how he interacted with others, we see him bear with the failings of the crowds, the disciples, and even the soldiers who crucified him.
In the face of Jesus, we also see how patient God the Father is with us. As parents, we get upset when they turn around and disobey after giving so much to our children. We think, “Don’t they realize how much I have done for them?” But this exact scenario plays out with our Heavenly Father and us. He provides for us and blesses us in so many undeserved ways. Then we forget to honor him, or we disobey him. But rather than reacting in anger, our Father is long-suffering with us.
God desires you to become more like him—patient and kind. But we don’t develop patience with just an open Bible and coffee. The young family’s chaos is precisely the environment where God molds our character. We need trials to move from impatience to patience.
How do I actively cultivate this growth in patience? Here are three simple suggestions.
1. Begin praying daily for the Spirit to give you patience. And as you ask him to give you patience, remind yourself that you will be tempted to be impatient today. At the beginning of the day, pray, “Lord, I know I will be tempted to be impatient and harsh today. Help me recognize the temptation in the moment and give me patience.” Just this prayer alone can help you grow in this area.
2. Meditate long on the patience God has displayed toward you. Fill your journal with verses that remind you how the Lord is slow to anger with us. In that same search, find other verses in Proverbs that teach us about the foolishness of anger and the wisdom of self-control in this area.
3. Following the instructions in James, begin praying for wisdom as to how you should handle the situations that are provoking you. God has made you in his image, and we are to lead our family well. Sometimes, the only response may be to work on our hearts. But in other situations, the wise response may be to change something in our parenting.
The hardest but best place to live out the gospel is in your home and with your family. Becoming more patient is possible. And slowly, over time, your children will also recognize this change in you.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your patience with me in so many areas. At times I have been foolish or disobeyed you, yet you never lashed out in anger. That is so much grace to me. Help me to grow to be like Jesus. Fill me with the supernatural patience of the Spirit. Help me diligently be aware of the temptation that will come my way and my power to overcome it. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.