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Key Bible Verse: Your anger can never make things right in God's sight (James 1:20). Bonus Reading: Galatians 5:13-26

In the film Analyze This, a psychiatrist suggests to his patient, an angry mobster, that hitting a pillow will make him feel better. But instead of punching the pillow, the mobster pulls out a gun and shoots it.

So, do you feel better?" the psychiatrist asks.

"Yeah," the mobster says, smiling. "I do."

The scene is funny, but it perpetuates a widespread—and erroneous—notion, made popular through the theories of Sigmund Freud. According to Freud's theory of catharsis, when we repress anger, pressure builds like steam in a kettle, and the best way to relieve the pressure is to release it by venting it.

But psychologists are learning that venting anger actually increases aggression. In recent studies, subjects who pummeled a punching bag became more aggressive than subjects who did not. After all, whatever you act out, you are practicing. And whatever you practice, you grow better at doing.

So giving in to our impulses is a bad idea. Self-control, in fact, is part of the fruit of the Spirit. What we ought to be practicing—until they become second nature—are the biblical virtues. Then what people will see in us is the fruit of the Spirit—not unrestrained rage and broken china.

—Charles Colson in How Now Shall We Live?

My Response: If "getting my anger out" to defuse rage goes against God's Word, how do I need to change my thinking?

Thought to Apply: Anger is as a stone cast into a wasp's nest.—Malabar (Indian) proverb

Adapted from How Now Shall We Live? (Tyndale, 2004) by permission.

Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Lord, when my anger is out of control, Your Spirit isn't in charge. I ask for Your help in governing my temper.

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