My Anger Towards Anyone Is Really My Hatred Towards Me

I have been pondering and pondering these questions that my wife has been asking me again and again: “Why do you hate me so much?” and “Why are you so angry all the time?”

I have become a wrecking ball of anger. I am just angry all the time. Even when my anger is not being displayed or manifested, I am churning and burning inside already so that any one little thing can set me off. I can have a conversation with my wife where I am like a pendulum swinging back and forth in and out of fits of anger and irrationality. There are even times when I get so angry that I cannot think rationally. I get paralyzed unable to move, unable to think. Sometimes, it is next to impossible to get myself out of that stage of mind. It usually takes me doing something else entirely before I can calm myself down. And then, it was as if I was taking drugs because I don’t recall much of anything. Maybe it’s because I am so filled with emotions, adrenaline, or some other hormone or medical hoopla that I know nothing about.

However, this I do know. My anger towards anyone is a manifestation of my hatred of myself. I hate myself. I hate who I’ve become. I hate what I do. I hate me. I am an emotional ball of junk. I am always angry, yet always sad. I hate myself. Yes, strong words, but it is how I feel.

So besides already hating myself and being upset and angry about that, just looking at my wife can cause me to become angry. But how? Just looking at my wife makes me think how inadequate, how disappointing, how irresponsible, how pathetic, how idiotic, and how stupid I am. Just looking at my wife reminds me how insufficient I am, how I am not coming close to meeting just 1 or if I’m lucky 2 of her needs. Just looking at my wife, reminds me of how worthless I am as a husband and sometimes as a father. It reminds me of how much of a jerk I am and how I am not that much of a man in the first place. It reminds me how I am falling short of all my responsibilities, failing to follow through, failing to do the things I said I would do, failing to complete my list of daily tasks, failing to complete any of my projects. Looking at my wife reminds me how lazy I am, how fat I am, how insensitive I am, and how much I hurt people, especially her.

And because of this, I hate myself. Instead of doing any of the things I know I should do, I do the very things I shouldn’t…though I am not like Paul (Romans 7)…I am must worse than the depiction he gives there. I hate that I don’t make my wife a better person; rather, I am certain that I make her worse. I hate that I don’t make enough money to make a halfway decent living. I hate that I can’t give her the smallest thing without it breaking our budget. I hate that there is always strife and anger in our home. I hate that I have destroyed our dreams again and again. I hate that I am so forgetful and so irresponsible. I hate myself.

At night I am so tense. There is a constant, steady flow of background noise, a constant ringing in my ears. I am beginning to have headaches again and again as I did when I was a child. Because of the way I feel, I have no desire to read my Bible because I know that it says that I shouldn’t hate myself, etc, etc. I know that it tells me all the things I should be doing (that I already know I should be doing) that I am not doing, which only reinforces my hatred of myself. However, eventually from exhaustion (because I feel as though I live in a state of exhaustion), I fall asleep (yet, I can fall asleep any time any where, which is probably a sign of sleep apnea).

Many times over I think how much better my wife would have it if I were not in her life. If I would just leave then her life would get better almost instantaneously. It would take the burden off of her for constantly contemplating separation. It would allow her to tell the truth of who I really am to the kids. I would give her the freedom to finally tell everyone about the real me.

So if you ever wonder why a husband gets angry “unjustifiably” at their wife, especially if they are an addict, they are probably thinking/feeling the same things as I do.

Romans 6 Series: Part 9, Newness of Life Vs. Oldness of Porn

This is a guest post by Luke Gilkerson (who runs @covenanteyes) from Covenant Eyes.

Do you believe, on the basis of your faith in the resurrection of Jesus, that God will raise you on the last day? Do you also believe that you are united to the living Christ now? Do you believe that God can bring righteous life to your mortal, sin-entrenched body, even in this present age?

This is not merely a pep talk to consider “who you are in Christ,

Romans 6 Series: Part 8, In This Hope We Were Saved

This is a guest post by Luke Gilkerson (who runs @covenanteyes) from Covenant Eyes.

For Paul it all goes back to our faith in Christ. But this isn’t just any sort of faith. It isn’t just a general belief. It is profound faith. It is a resurrection-faith.

“[I]f you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved

Romans 6 Series: Part 7, Consider Yourselves Dead to Sin

This is a guest post by Luke Gilkerson (who runs @covenanteyes) from Covenant Eyes.

“So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 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. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace

Romans 6 Series: Part 6, What about Dying to Sin?

This is a guest post by Luke Gilkerson (who runs @covenanteyes) from Covenant Eyes.

Why does all this talk of death and resurrection matter? Where do we learn how to die to our sin and live lives of holiness? When do we get the pep talk on mortifying our flesh and fighting our sin?

I do not talk about that here because this is not where Paul talks about it. It is crucial we understand the flow of Paul’s thought. He does not spend five chapters teaching us about the glories of the free gift of grace apart from any works on our part, only to double-back with, “But it’s still important to keep the commandments.

Romans 6 Series: Part 5, Christ Lives to God

This is a guest post by Luke Gilkerson (who runs @covenanteyes) from Covenant Eyes.

In what sense does Christ now live to God? Again, understanding what Paul means is important if we are going to live to God ourselves. Christ somehow “lives to God

Romans 6 Series: Part 4, Christ Died to Sin

This is a guest post by Luke Gilkerson (who runs @covenanteyes) from Covenant Eyes.

What does it mean to say Christ “died to sin

Romans 6 Series: Part 3, We Died to Sin

This is a guest post by Luke Gilkerson (who runs @covenanteyes) from Covenant Eyes.

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Romans 6 Series: Part 2, Problem Created by Romans 1-5

This is a guest post by Luke Gilkerson (who runs @covenanteyes) from Covenant Eyes.

The Problem Created by Romans 1-5

At the risk of writing something overly familiar to you, it is important to summary Paul’s argument in Romans 1-5. Paul’s gospel is as follows: The whole human race, Jew and Greek alike, is under the wrath of God because of the rebellion of sin (Romans 1:18-3:20). The whole world is accountable to God. But the good new is: “[A]ll have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

Romans 6 Series: Part 1, Overview: Spotlight on Romans

This is a guest post by Luke Gilkerson (who runs @covenanteyes) from Covenant Eyes.

I spend the lion’s share of my time interacting online with people who have been impacted by pornography, often in overtly visible ways. Christian “porn addicts,

What Does It Mean to Believe? What Does It Mean to Have Faith?

What is faith? What does it really mean to believe? Is it:

  • a firm belief in something for which there is no proof, or something desired, and is expected to occur?
  • complete unfounded confidence?
  • makes up what is lacking in knowledge?
  • a belief in the trustworthiness of an idea that has not been proven?
  • a mental acceptance of and confidence in a claim as truth without proof supporting the claim?
  • a convinced belief; a condition of mind fully satisfied; next to actual knowledge?
  • an acceptance of ideals, beliefs, etc., which are not necessarily demonstrable through experimentation or reason?
  • not a mental construct, a set of propositions, or a statement of belief, but an inner attitude of confidence and deep trust which grounds the human soul in peace and inner stability?

What is it? What is biblical faith? What is saving faith? πιστευω (pisteuo) is the Greek word for faith. It basically means “to believe, have faith, have confidence (in something or someone), entrust (something to another).” We must consider the whole of Scripture to really determine what faith is. We must consider both the Apostle Paul (Romans 4, etc) and James, the half-brother of Jesus & leader of the Jerusalem Church. Saving, Justifying Faith has three things.

1. Knowledge/Content
There is no such thing as a contentless faith. A person can accurately say, “I don’t believe in anything.” However, if a person says, “I believe in nothing,” that is just like saying, “I don’t believe in anything.” A person who lacks faith in something lacks faith. However, I believe we would be hardpressed to find a person who truly believes in nothing, even atheists believe something whether evolution or whatever. Agnostics don’t deny believing or not believing. They have only come to an impasse and refuse to take a stand for or against. Either their intellect wants to believe but their heart refuses or their heart wants to believe and their intellect won’t allow them to make the leap. Regardless, it does not make any sense to have contentless faith.

Biblical faith cannot have faith in faith. It is not faith that saves but the content on which the faith resides. If faith alone can save apart from grace and even Jesus, then any faith would suffice. However, the Scriptures are clear that it is faith in Jesus Christ that saves (cf. John 14:6; Acts 4:12; etc.). A person who sincerely believes something is no better than a demon who sincerely believed in Lucifer at the fall of a third of the angels.

A person cannot say that I am a faithful person without stating that they have a faith in something or that something. The essence of faithfulness necessitates a standard or an object or a person to which to be faithful. However, somehow, today it is virtuous to have a contentless faith. Can faith be in and of itself? Is faith an object? Always ask them what their faith is in? However, this is not enough for this is the Christology and theology of demons. James 2:19 states, “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.” So for saving, justifying faith, something else is needed.

For me, this was where I was as a Southern living deep in the Bible belt. I can remember to this day being in middle school thinking I was a Christian. I attended FCA under a man named Mr. Manning in 8th grade. If anyone were to ask me if I were a Christian, I would have said, “Yes.” However, not that this is a test of being a Christian, if someone were to ask me what Noah’s arc was I couldn’t have told them. I remember distinctly being made fun of by a Christian friend for not knowing what this was. However, this deceit is cultural and runs deep in the South (From Virginia south, Texas east, probably excluding Florida). “Everyone” in the South is a Christian and attends a local church. And that was me.

2. Agreement/Assent
There are different levels of assent and doubt. With every belief there is a level of doubt (e.g., Mark 9:24; Thomas, Jn 20:24-25; Rom 12:3). It is not just a blind leap, but it is also not just a logical step. It is foolish to say that the greatest faith seeks the least evidence. This is merely a historical reaction against reason (Enlightenment). By learning more about God we don’t have less faith or less reason to have faith. Reason shows that faith is logical. “We believe that we may understand,