The way I want to act and react

• By candidasullivan
• June 7, 2023
• No Comments

We have all reacted in unpleasing ways. Sometimes, the smallest thing can set me off and have me acting like a crazy woman—instead of a child of God. It happens. When I suppress my emotions and continue pushing them beneath the surface, I am only creating the perfect storm. Eventually, these emotions will explode and land on someone who doesn’t deserve my anger.

Maybe it’s the red hair. Or the fact that my flesh is extremely weak. Either way, the last time this happened and I yelled at my child, I decided I didn’t want to react this way anymore. When my anger comes out, it isn’t pretty. It makes me feel bad and makes whoever is on the receiving end of it feel bad. Even though I am quick to apologize, it is still there. And I don’t want to give the enemy any room in my life to hurt those I love.

Whenever we get stirred up, whatever is inside us will emerge. If I’m holding anger inside of me, then it will come out. However, if I have more kindness and love, that will spill out. And, my friends, I really want more love and kindness to spill out of me.

Therefore, I am working on this. When I do something wrong, I want God to give me grace—instead of His anger. I’m sure I do plenty of things each day to make Him angry with me, yet He pours His grace all over me. That’s how I want to be. I want to look at each situation as a child of God and react accordingly.

I always want to remember that the person who did something to make me angry is not my enemy. We have an enemy, yes, but the real one is in my mind. I want to learn to forgive quickly and then release those harmful feelings—immediately. I’m learning that my problem is not really the problem. My real problem is how I look at things.

So, I want to remember that God forgives me continuously. Then, I want to offer that same grace to everyone else. The enemy in my mind tells me this is impossible to overcome. But my God knew I would struggle with this, so He devised a way to help me overcome it.

Ephesians 4:31-32 (KJV)

31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

Oh yes, Lord, help me to be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving, and loving to everyone I encounter. These are the feelings I want to hold inside of me.