Ted Tripp on parents getting angry. . .

Needed this reminder today. . . we all get frustrated with our kids. . . Ted Tripp commented on a celebrity dad who was angry with his daughter. . .

"I believe, if we had been able to stop him, mid-rant, and asked why he was so angry, he would have said, “I’ll tell you why I’m angry, I’m angry because she disrespects me and makes me feel like a fool. She has done it repeatedly and I am sick of it.”

But the circumstances are not why he is angry; the circumstances are the when. Why is he angry? He is angry because he is not getting what he wants. James 4:1-2 makes it clear that the cause of fights and quarrels is never circumstantial: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but you don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.”

This distinction between the “when” and the “why” of behavior is a key thing for you to understand. Your child’s behavior is never “why” you are angry; it is the “when”. The “why” of your anger is always internal. You are not getting what you want. You want respect, obedience, cooperation; there are desires battling within. If you get angry it is not because of the circumstance of your son or daughter’s misbehavior. It is because you are not getting what you want.

This truth brings needed clarity to our problem. Anger is not something out of control, dependent on the actions and attitudes of others. Anger has to do with things within, things that God can help me to understand and die to. If my child’s words, behavior, or attitudes are “why” not “when” I get angry, there is no hope for me unless he behaves differently. But if those things are “when,” if I am angry because I have enthroned something other than God as the condition of my happiness, then I have someplace to go. I can go to God and ask Him to search my heart. By the power of grace I can turn aside from the things that I have made the condition of my happiness, and instead find my joy and satisfaction in Him. This can free me to interact with my child in ways that are truly nurturing and never abusive."

May the Lord teach me this summer how to respond with a kind voice in every situation. I usually only having anger in my heart when someone's misbehavior is inconveniencing me. If I stop what I'm doing and focus completely on the child, I don't get nearly as flooded emotionally as when I'd rather be doing something else than shepherding sinners like me.