ClydeStyle

Category: Anger

  • Peace and war is a crossroad for Christians

    One of the great principle concepts in Christianity is the notion of dealing with kindness, those who would oppose you.

    Why would someone do that, you ask? Well, the biggest benefit is spiritual, and if that matters to you, then keep reading. If it doesn’t, then I apologize for posting content that you’re not interested in and check back next week.

    But this week, I want to bring an understanding to the concept of heaping coals of fire on someone’s head. Paul wrote this in Romans 12, but it is an actual quote from Proverbs 25:21-22 and the end principle is that God will reward you!

    But don’t get too excited about the reward because it’s not like a dollar amount or some secret blessing that no one else gets. But the reward is a state God puts you in. This state is where every child of God should want to be. Can you imagine what it’s like to reach a stage of complete peace with God. All alien sinners are at war with God, whether they know it or not. You become the opposite of that when God gives you peace.

    Now, what do you get peace in exchange for? Great question. God observes you dealing with a person who has become your foe. The text translates this word as enemy. In the Greek, this word for enemy represents all scenarios/kinds of enemies. The one used in our Romans passage would be your foe, and that is someone who may have even been your close friend before, and something happened. More than likely, this person is/was a Christian that has allowed trouble to overtake them.

    This means that they once had a relationship with God. They may even think they still do. See, the problem is that uncontrolled anger is so blinding. A brother or sister in Christ can do something to you and cause you to be on the verge of hating them for what they did. We do this unaware of how it ruins our relationship with God.

    When this happens, we are to essentially cause remorse to happen in their heart. That is what heaping coals of fire on their head means. This action should strike a chord in their heart when  they are treating you like an enemy and you are treating them like a friend…still.

    As they go through trouble, you become the helping hand that heals their pain. God has promised to make us “peace buddies” with him when we do this.

    At some point in our Christian walk you will be faced with challenges. Are you ready to arrive at this crossroad? Are you ready to have your love for God tested? Get ready! It’s coming! And for some reading this now, it is already here!

  • It’s all about trust — we don’t have anymore

    America lacks trust.

    We don’t trust our government, strangers, our neighbors, some of our friends, and definitely a few family members that don’t make the trust cut! We are skeptical of everything. We have been betrayed by the media, our jobs, our healthcare system, and some of our loved ones.

    As a result, we question everything. True and false ride together now, and we can’t tell them apart. There used to be a thing called “benefit of doubt,” which has become obsolete.

    Politicians, preachers, police officers, and partners can not be trusted. So where do we go from here? The enemy of my enemy is not even my friend anymore.

    When a system gets violated, like in this case where we have been bombarded with constant lying, we can’t act like it didn’t happen. We can’t just get over it. Someone or something has to be held accountable.

    If we started to hold each other accountable then we would have to overhaul the government, the Healthcare system, the FDA, the military, criminal justice system, food manufacturers, automakers, churches, all charities, big pharma, all chain restaurants, the stock market, universities and schools (public and private), Entertainment and sports, and the media to start.

    Imagine living in a place that was set up for you to succeed. The baseline lifestyle for everyone was attainable with a little hard work. We eliminated the need for prisons, crime, and killing with education, support, and advancement. Could there really be a place where everyone wins? Is it only in my dreams?

  • Revenge is a dish we are not suppose to serve

    It is quite the human response to allow your anger to kindle to the point where you desire revenge. I mean, we live in a world that will run all over you if you let it. This place can be very challenging, and people have a tendency to take your kindness for weakness. So naturally, revenge would be the best way to repay, right? Wrong!

    Revenge was something that the creator of the universe never wanted us to participate in. In fact, he claimed it all for himself. Have you ever wondered why? Is it that God somehow delights in the big payback? Why would claim vengeance as his?

    Well, notice that the Bible speaks of revenge as a negative thing for us because we can’t do it outside of emotion. We need anger and a scenario to administer revenge. God doesn’t participate in revenge through emotion. Vengeance and revenge are two different things, and both for God are administered through justice. For us to achieve justice, we would have to first be righteous. We can not be righteous outside of Jesus, and we don’t get to participate in righteous acts. We are made righteous for judgment sake in order that we, on Judgment Day, would be accepted in the Beloved. Until we are removed from this flesh, we have to have Christ as our righteousness.

    Vengeance is when someone repays another for something they did to someone else. Revenge is when the dirty deed is done to you, and you repay the carnage. So when God says vengeance belongs to him, he means that anyone who does something to his child will have to deal with him, and this can be used as a means to save their soul or condemn them in the end. God decides because of his righteous state.

    Studies have found that the person seeking revenge suffers more emotional effects than someone who doesn’t. Moreover, you could end up in a vicious revenge loop that only ends when someone dies. Revenge causes depression and anxiety and lowers your immune system. Revenge takes a toll on your integrity and ruins your character.

    Payback only makes you feel good temporarily. Revenge never settles the score. The great poet Maya Angelou said in her memoirs that she was raped as a young girl and her dad and uncles beat the man within an inch of his life. Well, the guy never raped her again and wasn’t really able to do much more in life after that. Did the revenge satisfy or make even the fact that a young innocent girl was raped? Of course, it didn’t. Revenge could never change anything in the past. It just makes you act a fool in the future.

  • Politics as usual: They don’t really care about us

    Things are ramping up for the 2024 elections, and in every election year, politicians attempt to tell us what really is important. Their talking points start off with, “The American people want this…” Make no mistake, the elections are never for the American people. In a democracy, elections are used to make the people believe they have a say or control of what is happening in their country.

    Talking points work like worms against a fish. Politicians debate and talk about topics that interest the general population, but never are these things changeable. For example, President Joe Biden, who is the architect of the 94′ crimes bill responsible for putting millions of minorities in prison, went on the radio show The Breakfast Club and said if Black people did not vote for him, they weren’t Black. He talked about police shooting unarmed Black people was a problem; he talked about voting rights being a priority; he talked about the criminal justice system being a problem, but they didn’t make his radar once he was elected.

    What Biden did is what every Democrat does: Their interest is not in helping minorities but in helping the base. Republicans are the same with favoring their base. The problem is the majority of the people in both bases are white!

    So then brown people continue to struggle with immigration and black people struggle with everything else. Doing things for the masses or serving you base doesn’t scratch the surface of the people for minorities.

    When I say minorities, I am talking about people in America who make under 80k per year. The best part of America is the ability to earn money. A sample of all races is earning money in America, but the overwhelming majority of Americans are struggling. I am specifically saying that there is not much being done to help their situations. Some temporary Covid protocols made a difference for a short while, but these benefits don’t compare to the benefits given to citizens in other countries.

    So after each election, politicians prove to the masses that they don’t care about us. We should begin hearing about the “big scare” that the democrats do every election year to cause fear among the people of the dangers of not voting democrat. The Republicans do they same thing on their side, and while the fear is increased, the benefits for the poor decrease. Don’t think this is a racial divide because it isn’t. This divides us by class.

    The greatest vote you can make to a politician is to contribute money to their campaign because that’s who will be satisfied with the win. Imagine if you are a politician and one constituent gives you $50, and another gives you $1000 per month. Who would you listen to?

    Until this system changes, the common man will always get the shaft during the elections.

  • American satire: The media’s usual vision for covering news

    In America, it used to be that Fox News would slant stories more to the conservative end, and MSNBC would slant stories more to the liberal end, and we could rely on CNN to land somewhere near the middle. Today, media coverage is extremely biased and used more as a weapon than a resource.

    The only exception is when it comes to race. Last weekend in Mongomery, Alabama, on the riverfront where ironically slave ships dropped off its cargo, the media told us that a fight broke out involving many people, and lots of arrests were made.

    Those are the details, and that would be fine if we didn’t know what actually happened. If Black people were the aggressor, the media coverage would have been something like: “Several gang bangers were arrested after starting a brawl on the riverfront.”

    What actually happened was that a security guard was instructing people to move their boat from the area where they docked it. Words were exchanged, and the patron punched the guard, and the fight began. Several people came to the aid of the patron, and in seconds, they had the guard on the ground, punching and kicking him.

    Onlookers were outraged and came to the aid of the guard. So the fight that should have taken place 250 years ago on those same docks took place then. The groups were, of course, divided by race. Since the aggressors were Caucasian, the Caucasian media just called it a brawl – like it just started like a fire. Caucasian aggressors don’t fit the narrative. When Caucasians do aggressive things, the language is cleaned up to make it less horrible.

    Most mass shooters have been white males. There is actually a psychological reason for that, but I won’t go into it here. The point is that you would never hear the media say, “Yet another Caucasian male has killed several students and teachers in a school, police baffled as to the reason.”

    For decades, the media has villianized Black men in news reports, and we hear it so often that it sounds normal. The videos of the Montgomery incident have gone viral, and memes regarding the event are everywhere.

    Many are asking the question, what would you do if you were there? What side would you have taken, or would you have stayed out of it completely? For many, this was more than just a brawl. It was more than just some strangers coming to the aid of a man in need. It was finally the response that Gen z and Under would rather have learned in their history books. It was the response that mirrored what many have said they would have done if they were present back in the Jim Crow south. Finally, Black people banded together and fought back.

    Will this make future incidents worse?

  • Have gun, will travel

    This phrase from the 50s is all about being ready to do anything. There was even a show about it back then, but the makers of this show would have never imagined that their callous attitude about the use of guns would be trumped by the views held currently about gun use.

    I wonder how many folks believe the founding fathers were thinking of automatic weapons when they wrote in the constitution for us to have the right to bear arms?

    What is more scary is that in recent months, there have been some really senseless shootings. There have been people shot for going to the wrong house, getting in the wrong car, standing around doing nothing, and going to a sweet 16 party. It seems as though the school shootings, church shootings, and other mass shootings are old news.

    Have we gotten bored with shootings?

    And then, Congress can’t seem to find the courage to solve this very simple problem. The answer is not as easy as changing gun laws or even outlawing certain guns because there are too many guns available.

    If we take the position that we all have to die of something or you feel that as long as it is not your kid getting shot, then who cares? It is easy to see how votes can be purchased for a price, and the NRA has deep pockets. Their average spending is around 3.2 million per year, buying the votes of senators and other law makers.

    The level of hypocrisy has to stop. Clearly, the answer will not come on a federal level. It has to take place state by state. Local organizing is the answer, and the time to do it is now. Have political power, will travel!

  • The power of our integrity

    The division we face in this world is directly related to our integrity. Let me explain. Integrity is the state of being whole and undivided. Our divisions come from a response to what is happening and the blaming of opposing sides.

    For example, Republicans are convinced that President Joe Biden is bad for America. A growing population believes the Republicans are holding back our country. Depending on what side you fall on, you will pick up the disagreements where they left off. You will be outraged because they are. You will play out their thoughts with your aggression as we saw at the insurrection on Jan. 6.

    Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. It’s moral uprightness. You see, this allows me to maintain my moral integrity even when my favorite party goes rogue.

    Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris ran on a platform that promised to improve our criminal justice system. Now they could still do something but the fact that it’s not even being discussed is disappointing. Further, under this administration, we are doing more for Ukrainian refugees than we are for American citizens who are struggling. Congress recently passed legislation that allows Ukrainian refugees to collect social security benefits — to the tune of more than two grand per person in the household.

    Social security is a system that the beneficiaries have paid into over time. This would mean that our hard-earned dollars are going to help them and not the folks that it was intended. And neither party has solved the problem of making sure all eligible veterans receive their benefits. There are too many who are homeless.

    Integrity is the element that should stop a person from grabbing a firearm and harming innocent folks! If you cannot look at the various arguments without losing your cool, you have an Integrity problem.

    What Dr. Martin Luther King was trying to do with the civil rights movement was take people with integrity to look at society’s problems systemically and find nonviolent ways to solve such problems. He was quite successful in doing that.

    Today America needs an integrity check and begin to solve its problems in the best interest of all people. If not, we will destroy ourselves from the inside.

  • Vengeance doesn’t belong to us

    Humans are capable of great fits of rage. When anger is kindled there is a loss of level thinking, blood runs high and irrational behavior follows. Some of the dirtiest deeds in the world have come from human anger.

    Biblically we were told that vengeance did not belong to us. It was a property of the Almighty! The creator of the universe promised that he would repay. I wonder is that because he knew that we were not equipped to deal with anger?

    When a person gets anger the worst of that person can be seen. They feel the need to be vindictive by any means necessary. People who are more vengeful tend to be those who are motivated by power, by authority and by the desire for status. They basically don’t want to lose face. A person described as vindictive is usually someone who holds a grudge and who always tries to get back at people who they think have wronged them in some way.

    Vindictive people retaliate against others for any insult or perceived slight. Vindictive people do not let things go but rather must seek revenge to satisfy a burning sensation within to play God.

    Psychologically speaking, revenge is more of an emotional state that is triggered when one feels they have been attacked or wronged by another party. It runs on impulse and if not controlled it will destroy whole families and friends.

    The best way to handle your anger and prevent yourself from possible legal trouble is to examine the potential stressors in your life and decide if they are absolutely necessary. Look at the things that matter to you the most and see which areas you are most vulnerable. Some people are very sensitive about their personal life. If you are one of those people then you probably should not have pictures of your family displayed at work and double check your social media privacy settings to make sure you are in complete control over your content.

    Moreover, it would be wise to review your friendships and decide how much access to you they can have. Make sure that you separate your very close friends from mire acquaintances and have close friends who you can talk to when life gets stressful.

    Above all, work on your de-escalation skills and make sure you drink plenty of water and definitely get enough sleep. Regular exercise needs to be apart of your daily routine. Try your best to live peaceably with everyone.