All posts tagged: why am I so angry

Jesus wants to heal the broken hearted Credit: Diego Sevilla Ruiz/Flickr/Creative Commons

Healing your broken heart

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In an interview with Psychology Today, a secular therapist based in New York City suggests that struggles we are having with cow0rkers may be a result of unresolved issues with our family. Maria Baratta said that certain actions of coworkers may be subconsciously reminding you of the behavior of family members and triggering your negative reaction. According to Baratta the key to dealing with this is to recognize what is happening as this is the first step of dealing with your negative reactions. However, Jesus went one step further. One day, Peter asked Christ how many times does a person need to forgive his brother and sister, and threw out a number of seven times? This suggests some family issue had popped up or at the very least a memory of an earlier incident. I suspect Peter thought he was being magnanimous when he suggested seven times (Matthew 18:21), because the Jewish rabbis taught that a person didn’t need to forgive more than three times and often cited Amos 1:3-13 as the basis for this …

Credit: sarah-ji/Flickr/Creative Commons

Are we vulnerable to satanic attack if we don’t forgive others?

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Many years ago, my wife and I had a Christian couple over for supper. After the meal we were sitting around talking. I can’t even remember what we were talking about, but suddenly the man exploded in anger. We all turned to the man in utter shock. You could hear the rage in his voice and see it on is face. He was blustery red. His eyes were wide. His voice was loud. We just looked at him stunned by what was coming out of his mouth. When he started settling down a bit, I asked him why he was so angry. He looked at me and said he didn’t know why. What we were talking about was so nondescript that I can’t even remember what it was about, but something we said triggered a fury deep within the man. A rage was so real, that I still remember it decades later. Though the husband didn’t know why he was so angry, there may have been a good reason for the rage. Jesus made an …

The main mound of the ancient city of Nineveh on the Plains of Nineveh Credit: fredarch/Wikipedia/Creative Commons

The power of forgiveness

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When the Islamic extremist group ISIS invaded the Nineveh Plains in North Eastern Iraq over four years ago, the 140,000 Assyrian Christians living there were given three choices convert to Islam, die or flee. The Nineveh Plains are home to the ancient ruins of Nineveh, the city that the prophet Jonah called to repentance. Christians have inhabited this area for 2,000 years and many speak modern Aramaic, a version of the language that many believe Jesus spoke. Tens of thousands of Assyrian Christians fled into neighboring countries where they lived for years as ISIS ravaged their homeland. The Islamic extremists were determined to wipe out any evidence of the Christian faith on the Nineveh plain. ISIS leveled an estimated 13,000 homes of Christians, destroyed 263 Christian churches and obliterated Christian monuments including the tomb of Jonah. Christian cemeteries were also destroyed and purposefully desecrated. ISIS was determined to wipe out the memory of the Christians who had lived on this plain for the past 2,000 years.  But with ISIS routed, four years later Christians are …