Chapter Four: Learning to Live without Anger
Visceral and meditative anger are fueled by two ingredients, unmet expectations and fear, that, when united, ignite into a strong emotion. Unmet expectations are occasions for anger. [Fear] is good old-fashioned insecurity. The initial unmet expectation has moved to a level of threat. It is only when we are threatened in some way that we get angry. Our problem is fear and we think control is the solution.
From fear to trust. My daughter Hope and I were at one of my son's many baseball games. She went off to a swing with a friend. She never left my field of vision, but I moved from one part of the stands to another. When she turned to see me in the stands she thought I was gone; she welled up with tears and began running to the stands. Only about thirty seconds went by, but within that time she lost her breath and began panting with fear. I said, "Hope, I am over here," and she came running. "How could you leave me!" she said, trembling. "I never left you," I said. "And I never lost sight of you. You lost sight of me." She calmed down quickly, but the fear took a while to subside.
We may lose sight of God, but God never loses sight of us. God gives us space to experiment, grow, and mature; God never intrudes. But this doesn't mean God is not with us, is not watching us, is not intimately familiar with our comings and goings.
Question: How does trust diffuse anger?
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