Monday, February 2, 2009

Old Patterns and Habits

Do you have any areas of your life that no matter how hard you try, how many times we determine not allow that particular pattern to be in our lives, it still creeps in. Have you prayed and memorized scripture and yet you find yourself back in that old habit again? It talks in Hebrews 12:1 about a sin that so easily trips us up (NLT). I do believe that due to our personalities, background and maturity we all have particular areas that we have to consistently stay on top of or they will overcome us. For some it is excessive worry, or it could be anger, or pride, or lying. The list could go on and on.

For me, the pattern, habit or sin that so easily trips me up is anger. When I was much younger the anger was evident to all around me, but through the years and hopefully some maturity it is an area that I have with God's help gotten under control. But, it is an area of my life that I have to be constantly on guard about. I have done so well in this area in recent years that I really was convinced that I had it conquered, I had been delivered and was quite pleased with myself. Recently in the last few months, I have seen this pattern or habit rise up again and although it has made me sad that I have not conquered it completely, it has been a reminder to me that we can never become so confident that we let down our guard in these areas that we know are struggles for us. The good thing is that when I get angry now, it doesn't look like it used to. It isn't so outward, more inward and I am very aware of it. I used to ignore it or excuse it due to my personality but now I continue to realize it is not an option and I must continue to strive to rid my life of it or at least turn it around very quickly.

So as a reminder to myself and others I am going to take the next few posts to talk about Anger. What causes it, when does it become sin and how do you heal from it and let it go.

And “don’t sin by letting anger control you." Eph 4:26

Scary picture! :)

4 comments:

Chayil said...

It is so easy to make excuses for our bad behavior. I spend a lot of time blaming my personality for my issues instead of dealing with them. Fortunately for us christians the word usually shines a bright light on these areas and makes us understand that to be like Christ we must be constantly changing.

I also think that is good that we never really "achieve" it reminds us of how weak we really are and how dependant we are upon the Lord to be strong for us.

(By the way...I hate getting my picture taken and most of my pictures look grumpy, but the worst are when Paul is trying to videotape me...it makes me mad...feel free to use any of my pics or videos for future anger blogs LOL :)

Unknown said...

I've seen that look before :)

We all have areas that we're weak in but we also have a choice. Running from it never produces grow and character. Only when we decide to give it to God and really be discipline to overcome will we then see results. You have to keep your guard up because if you don't the ugly side might come back.

CoachK said...

Chayil, It's true that we always need the Lord's help to conqueror or at least try to overcome our weak areas, and that does keep us dependant on Him, which is good but it would be nice to just totally be done with certain behaviors in our lives.

I would really like to not have any pictures of myself any more that look like the one on this post. :)

If I had known you had some great anger photos I would have called you! I deliberated for quite awhile before putting mine on....then I thought.... really... hasn't everyone in my life already seen that look!

CoachK said...

Deborah,
Yes, I'm quite sure you have seen that look. :) I would definatly say that picture is the ugly side. :)