Freedom Walker

         Ever been around someone you knew it would take very little for them to explode?   You try to walk around subjects that might trigger an outburst such as politics, family issues, cultural differences, preachers, you name it and that person who is a walking time bomb can be set off by just about anything. You feel like you are walking on egg shells trying not to anger them. You feel  your  body tense up when a subject has come up you know will set them off. 

Almost impossible to really enjoy being around them isn't it? They can make family reunions a nightmare. 

I know about anger first hand.  Alcohol and anger was what ruled our home as I was growing up. My Dad was not one of those lovable drunks.   I knew little about my Dad's family except his brother and being around him told me he suffered with the same anger. Also learned their Dad had a drinking issue along with anger.   Sound like something we can pass on to others, doesn't it? 

Anger is the fruit of rotten roots. One of the primary roots of anger stems from the family. Angry people come from angry families because they learn from their role models and carry on the same behavior in their own lives, eventually passing it on to their children.  Since I cannot change my family roots I have a choice to be like them or try something different.  

It does not take long to realize an angry person has got some deeper issue going on inside them.  The emotional pain drives them to an outburst and leaves you wondering, what did I say or do to trigger that?  You work hard at staying out of their way. 

There is nothing I dislike about myself more then my temper. It was the sin that so easily besets me and I would justify it by how I was raised.   Angry people begat angry people, right?  That kind of rationalization worked when I did not have the Holy Spirit living inside of me.  When I faced my anger and decided to deal with it God's way I found I could over come it.  God brought stability into my heart and taught me how to walk in the Spirit and the power of forgiveness.   Not only those who hurt me but for myself when I failed to exercise self control a fruit of the Spirit. 

My heart was prompted to write on this because just a few weeks ago I was at a mini family reunion with my brothers.  We had not been together since our mother had died.  There was a small dread in me about the re-union because one of my brothers  is a walking time bomb, full of pain and anger.  Our father was  very cruel to our Mom and  us three kids, but more so toward this brother.  He (my brother) always had a short temper and it got shorter as he grew and he turned to unhealthy ways of dealing with it which caused him to end up in a reform school then a year in prison.   Most everyone who meets him knows within a few minutes he is an angry man.  From the few times he would talk to me about it, it was clear he had never forgiven our Dad who has been dead for years. I told him he was enslaved to a man whose body rots in the grave one time during a confrontation  we had.  He would not give God a chance to help him over come this anger. 

There is no one I pray for more then this brother, Larry,  and would ask you to pray for him too.  And I have seen a softening in him the last couple years.   I want him to understand Ephesians 6:12 That he wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.  I want him to know  freedom from this anger. Every time I am around him I see how easily I could be just where he is, it's a choice.  I chose to be a freedom walker.  

What are you walking in today, anger or freedom?