JustifiedIhe Atụ

You know, the actual lightbulb in a stoplight isn't actually red. The lightbulb is white — it's the red lens over it that makes the stoplight look red to our eyes. If you take that red lens away, you see the lightbulb's actual color.

That's kind of how anger works a lot of the time. A lot of us have an "angry lens" that makes our emotions look like anger on the outside. But if you take that lens away, the real emotion might be a totally different hue.

Maybe we're actually feeling scared. Maybe we're feeling guilty. Maybe we're ashamed. These are really personal, vulnerable things to be feeling and we don't have a lot of practice in sharing them with other people. So, instead, we put on our "angry lens" and fool everyone around us into thinking we're just plain mad. Sometimes, we can even fool ourselves.

It's important to understand the real emotions behind our anger if we want to get better at controlling it . . . but it's not easy. That's why so many people in the Bible turned to God for help. They knew that God understands what's going on in our hearts, even when nobody else does — not even ourselves!

So next time you're angry, Psalms has some great advice on how to reach out to God for help in figuring out what's really going on. Once you know what's going on, you'll have a better idea of what to do about it.