I used to struggle with anger quite a bit in the past but growing up in Christ has taught me that "righteous anger" is good. When one is using his/her anger for God's glory, it is well-placed anger. Any other anger is just misplaced and misused. Also, holding anger in is not the best thing to do with anger either.

Typically nowadays I am calm most of the time, but those situations do arise when I just want to bunch up my fist and punch something. It's easy to lose control, but it helps if one casts his/her faith to God.

Thanks for the entry, God bless!

anger is deeply embedded in the soul...

I used to get angry a lot and stuff it down inside. For me, it was tied to insecurity, lack of trust in God, and feelings ofworthlessness. It was like I felt like I had to get angry  as a defense mechanism, or else people would run over me and I wouldn't be safe or I wouldn't matter.

Also, I was angry about some hurtful things from my childhood, but I didn't realize it. The leftover anger spilled out into other areas of my life.

As God has held me and healed me in other areas, my anger issues have improved. When I get angry, it's usually because I'm feeling guilty or scared. God comforts me and takes those feelings away.  I also realized and confronted the fact that bad things did happen to me in my childhood. Those things mattered, but I had to let God free me from being in bondage to them. It's still an ongoing process. God also helps me to be more patient with people, which doesn't come easily or naturally.

One thing I do is to try to notice my responses and to change them immediately if I notice that I am acting unkindly in a situation.

@Pickwick12@xanga - Right.
Yet Ephesians 4 says "Give no opportunity to the devil" (ESV), meaning we make the choice whether to give the devil opportunity, to succumb to His wiles, to give him a foothold.

In James 1, we read:

Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

And in Romans 6:

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

When the devil tempts, we have a choice to make. In Christ, we have the power to say "yes" to righteousness and "no" to sin, but apart from Christ we had no such power, we were enslaved to sin and dead in sins and transgressions.

But the believer has been crucified w/ Christ and raised with Him, so we can choose to render ourselves as instruments to righteousness and walk in newness of life (See Romans 6), in this case not to be angry.

When we say "the devil made me do it," that's no different than Adam and Eve passing along the responsibility for their own sin (Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent), rather than confessing that the responsibility lay with themselves.

I worked as a cashier in a grocery store for almost 4 years, and often found myself the victim of customer abuse.
Man did I ever have to learn to control my temper.
It got to the point where I was in tears with my anger every time I was alone, and I was becoming miserable. I had no way to express my anger with these people (justified as much as it would have been with some of them) while I was at work, and I was on the verge of biting someone's head off. Then I prayed, and prayed, and prayed. And God put this thought in my heart "Be a duck".
Laugh all you want, but He did. And what He meant was a duck lets the water just roll of his back, not bothering him. And thats how I had to learn to deal with people who pushed my temper button.
So, I am a duck.
(this sounds silly but it really works.. with anything.. even people on the phone).

Yes, I have a huge problem with anger. I have prayed a lot to God on how to deal with my anger without sinning and without letting Satan get a foothold. Have you ever truly felt immersed in spiritual warfare? When it comes to my anger, I do. Sometimes it is truly scary. My thoughts are scary...the things that come out of my mouth are scary. It's like I'm not even myself.  Sometimes in my phases of anger, I really see how threatening evil is and how much we need God to help us not fall victim to it. It is one of the hardest challenges I face and this post and responses have helped to encourage me. Thank you all.

@lotjiujeurng@xanga - another thing that helped me get over being angry was a line from Ravi Zacharias: "There is no good reason to be unkind."

There are only bad reasons....

Above all, choose kindness.

@naphtali_deer@xanga - this is correct, the devil does not make anyone *DO* anything, however, the bible is clear in warning us to not give him the opportunity to influence us into doing anything - thus to not give him the chance to get a hold of it. So we have to first consider that before we think about blame.

As for who you want to blame after, that's a different topic. :)

Behind anger there is always some other uncomfortable emotion: hurt, disappointment, grief, pain, jealousy, fear, etc. It can be helpful to identify what the underlying feeling is, rather than dwelling on the insistent urge for vengeance or retribution. It requires vulnerability, and that is why it doesn't feel natural.

Like you say, compassion is very helpful in dealing with hurtful situations: the realization that most people who inflict pain are miserable themselves. My pastor told about eating at a restaurant where the waitress was rude and unhelpful. When he complained to the manager, the manager told him the woman's husband had died a day or two before, leaving her with three kids to raise and no money, so she felt the pressure to work but emotionally was a basket case.

Personal security is also tremendously helpful. God dealt radically with my insecurity in the past three or four years, and now I find it much easier not to take offense since I'm no longer unsure of my own adequacy and worth.