Explosive Anger: My Journey – Dave Wilson

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Today® with Dave and Ann Wilson; Podcast Transcript

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Anger and Forgiveness

Guests:Dave and Ann Wilson

Release Date:September 30, 2025

Dave (00:00):

I’m going to punch somebody in the face right now.

Ann (00:02):

Are you in a bad mood today?

Dave (00:06):

I might be. How honest do you want me to be?

Ann (00:10):

This is going to be really interesting because we’ve had a rough morning.

Dave (00:17):

You want to talk about anger? I figured I might as well get angry and display the emotion we’re going to talk about.

Ann (00:24):

I guess it’s appropriate, but I remember, I think we’d been married about four years. We were in seminary, and we were wallpapering. We’re flipping a house in seminary.

Dave (00:32):

I do not remember this.

Ann (00:34):

You don’t?

Dave (00:35):

I remember—I remember that house. What room?

Ann (00:38):

So we’re in a bathroom and I’ve been wallpapering all day and we’re wanting to get it done quickly so you came in, you go, “I’ll help you.” I’m like, “Great.” So you’re helping me. You’ve never done it before. And you start telling me what to do and how I’m doing it all wrong.

Dave (00:53):

I never did that.

Ann (00:54):

You totally did it. So then you are like, “Just watch this,” and you do it and you rip the entire, this whole page of, not a page but a whole strip of wallpaper and you are so mad. And somehow it was my fault.

Dave (01:12):

Of course.

Ann (01:12):

And so I’m like, I looked at you. I’m like, “I’m not even going to do this with you. You can do it all by yourself if you’re going to be like that.”

Dave (01:19):

How many times have you said that in our marriage?

Ann (01:23):

But I feel like that started this journey for about maybe four or five years—

Dave (01:29):

—of me being angry.

Ann:

Yes!

Dave:

And a know it all.

Ann (01:32):

And you’re super chill when we were dating and so I’m like, “Who’s this guy that I’m married to?” But do you think that’s true—that you went through a real anger time?

Dave (01:42):

I know it’s true because you’ve told me a hundred times.

Ann (01:45):

But you didn’t feel it yourself?

Dave (01:48):

I couldn’t see it at the time. I mean the time you walked into the garage in Michigan—so this is years later, so it didn’t go away in a couple of years.

Ann (01:57):

No.

Dave (01:58):

And I literally think I had a pipe wrench, the big old pipe wrench, and I’m hitting the lawnmower because it wouldn’t start. And you just stood there like—

Ann (02:11):

You know what I thought? I thought, “What are our boys going to think of this? This is kind of weird and scary but funny too. What are you doing?” And it did make me laugh because you weren’t taking it out on any of us, but it was like, “Wow.”

Dave (02:26):

Well, the only reason you can laugh now is because I addressed it.

Ann (02:31):

Yes.

Dave (02:33):

I think—and again, that same house in Michigan, in the kitchen, when you said something you wanted to—I don’t even know what it was. You just said something about me and about our marriage and I blew up and you said—do you remember this? You said, “I’m never bringing stuff up anymore about our marriage because that’s what you do every time. You just blow up.” As you were walking away—I mean you couldn’t have scripted this any better—I said, “What are you talking about? I don’t blow up.” And you just turned and looked at me like exhibit A. And I think it was that moment—it was when I realized, “Oh boy, I think she’s right. Why am I yelling? Why am I hitting lawnmowers? Why am I—”

Ann (03:18):

Why is your tone so harsh.

Dave (03:20):

Yeah, I was angry. And again, in some ways we were younger marrieds. I don’t even know if we had kids yet, but—

Ann (03:27):

Not in seminary.

Dave (03:28):

—we didn’t understand what we try to tell younger couples now or any couple getting married, you’re bringing a whole bunch of baggage into your marriage.

Ann (03:36):

And your anger was one of them, but it was tied to something.

Dave (03:39):

Yeah, I had no idea. I knew there were—we talk about this at the marriage getaway, the FamilyLife Weekend to Remember®. There are stuffers and there are blowers. You were more of a blower. I was a stuffer and then it exploded because I would stuff it all down and I had no idea it was connected to anything. So after that moment in the kitchen, I realized I do have an anger problem. It’s explosive at times. I’ve never hit anybody. I don’t even think I ever cursed.

Ann (04:09):

No.

Dave (04:09):

I just was harsh and loud and mad. And yeah, when you’re kicking your lawnmower, because it won’t start, you might want to look in the mirror and say, “What’s this connected to?” So it’s like an extension cord wrapped around you or plugged into you and you got to go down that extension cord and say, where is this coming from? I found out mine was what psychologists call chronic anger.

Ann (04:34):

Yeah. Because some of us, if our kids are little and you’re frustrated and it’s just you’re in a hard season that might just be displaced anger. You’re just tired or you haven’t eaten. So it’s not about the kids, but it’s about something else that just recently happened or you’re experiencing. But chronic anger, explain what that is.

Dave (04:54):

Well, it’s interesting. What we’re talking about today is anger and forgiveness. That’s where we’re going to go. And if you’re dealing with that or your spouse is dealing with that or one of your kids, I’m saying listen up closely because this changed our marriage, changed our legacy.

Ann:

Totally.

Dave:

Getting a grip on this anger thing—which I didn’t know it at the time, had to do with forgiveness, changed our marriage. It changed, literally, our kids are different as men today—

Ann (05:21):

For sure.

Dave (05:21):

—because they had a dad who wasn’t angry, who got a grip on his anger.

(05:24):

And there’s a passage in the Old Testament. It’s in the book of Genesis where it’s the first murder in the Bible. Cain and Abel, two brothers. And Cain gets angry because God sort of likes Abel’s sacrifice better than his. And there’s an interesting passage where God comes to Cain and stops him. What are you doing here pulling this?

Ann:

Sorry, wait a minute. She’s so cute.

Dave:

We should keep this on video. She’s trying to get a napkin. Are you getting angry right now?

Ann:

—a tissue. No.

Dave:

Yeah, Genesis 4, Cain is getting angry, and God stops him. He hits the pause button, which I never realized that God is giving Cain an out. There’s a way to deal with your anger in a good way. So I think every time we get angry, we need to realize God asked us to stop and asked this question. Here’s the question he asked, says “So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?’” You got to love that. First of all, he’s saying, why are you angry? In other words, go down that extension cord and see if it’s plugged into something. And our face usually reveals our emotions—happy, joy. You’re smiling right now. I mean it’s just, and you drive by somebody on the road and they’re angry and you see it…

(06:56):

So he’s like, your face is downcast. And here’s what God says to Cain, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” What a clinic on what to do with your anger. You got to stop. You got to pause. You got to ask this question: why am I angry? Why is my face, why is my body my intent—what is happening right here? And he’s also saying this can lead to sin and really bad stuff. Or you can master it, you can rule it. You can get a grip on it. And actually this anger, it’s not a sin to be angry. It actually can be motivation to do something powerful, to change something that’s good anger. But if you don’t get a grip on it, it could destroy your life and destroy your marriage and destroy your legacy.

Ann (07:48):

And that scripture goes right along with Ephesians, “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger. Don’t get the devil a foothold.” And it’s exactly what you’re saying. God’s saying, don’t do it. Don’t do it. And that’s so practical of that foothold. What do you think that means when God says, don’t give the devil a foothold.

Dave (08:06):

He’s got you. He’s holding you. He’s going to keep you there for a long time. So I went on a journey after you said that and realized, yeah, I had anger. Displaced is like anger that’s displaced from something else happening in your life today or yesterday. Something happened at work, and you come home and you’re just sort of mean to your kids or your spouse, that’s displaced. Chronic, which I had never heard these terms before, but chronic anger is like displaced in that it’s coming from something else, not what’s right in front of you, but it’s deeper. It could be decades ago. It’s like the guy or the gal who’s seething. You never know what might set them off, like wallpaper or a lawnmower not starting. It’s like, what is happening? And it’s usually explosive. So you’re like, I can see why maybe you should have some anger, but not at that level. That should be a flashing light on the dashboard of your soul saying, “You have chronic anger, and it’s plugged into something, and you better figure out what and why and what you’re going to do about it.”

Ann (09:14):

Yeah, even the wallpaper story; that was like a two. It should be like a two on the anger scale out of ten and yours was a ten. But that is a good way. Same with our teenagers. Part of that’s hormonal, part of that situational, but man, if there’s just constant anger, it’s good to look deeper into it. So what was yours? What did you discover?

Dave (09:36):

Well, again, we didn’t realize. We brought things,

Ann:

baggage,

Dave:

baggage, luggage, whatever you want to call it, into our marriage. We sort of had this perspective. I mean obviously mine’s obvious. Obviously, it’s obvious—two alcoholic parents, divorce, adulteries by my dad, death of my brother when I was seven, he was five. All that is in my past. And guess what? In our family, we never, I mean ever talked about it.

Ann (10:03):

Ever talked about anything.

Dave (10:04):

Nothing.

Ann (10:05):

Except the good.

Dave (10:06):

Nothing. I saw it. I’m a little boy. My dad’s beating us. It’s just like, and nobody talks about it. I mean, my sister said she came home from high school when we moved to Ohio because now, we’re divorced, and mom has to move to where her parents are. So let’s start a new life. And Pam, my sister, who is 10 years older, says she walks home from high school. I was seven.

Ann (10:26):

So she was 17.

Dave (10:28):

And she says a minister is walking out of our house and just says, “Your brother just died.”

Ann (10:33):

Your little brother.

Dave (10:35):

And Pam said, I walked in the house. Mom never mentioned it. We never talked about it. I mean that’s just the way—

Ann (10:42):

You went to the funeral, and nobody ever talked about it.

Dave (10:44):

Yeah. So again, I didn’t think about any of that. I just thought that’s how families operate. And not knowing that I’m going to bring all that into our marriage. And so I had sort of stuffed that down. Never really saw my dad the rest of my life. Couple days a year, maybe he’d come. So there was a real fractured relationship there. You bring in sexual abuse and a performance from your family. So anyway, we bring those in. And the next thing I know, I’m, as you pointed out, a very angry guy. And I really think chronic anger that we’re talking about has a long extension cord. It’s not like displaced. Something happened this morning or maybe 30 minutes ago. It could be a year ago. It could be 20 years ago. So that extension cord is really long so you got to go back and say what it is. And I also believe this: chronic anger has a long extension cord, and it can’t be released or dealt with unless you forgive. That’s a bold statement. I think there’s somebody that’s hurt you in your life—

Ann (11:47):

Or something that’s happened.

Dave (11:49):

—and you’re going to have to make a choice to forgive that person, which makes no sense. It’s irrational. They don’t deserve it. And you’re holding that. And for me, it was my dad.

Ann (12:01):

How did you figure out it was your dad? How did you trace it back to him of being your anger? Some of us are thinking, this is me. I’m angry and I don’t know why. I don’t know what the extension cord is tied to.

Dave (12:13):

Yeah, I don’t think I realized it either until the day you told me.

Ann (12:19):

I should just like I’m liking this talk.

Dave:

You pointed out the anger and then, you don’t remember?

Ann:

I do remember. You were talking. I noticed your dad would call periodically and when you would talk to him—

Dave (12:31):

Well, I said it on a Sunday afternoon.

Ann (12:35):

Oh yes.

Dave (12:35):

Watching our little boys wrestle around on the floor in front of us. And I just turned to you, and again, listen to the kind of things you’re saying.

Ann (12:43):

They were probably seven, five, and two at that time.

Dave (12:46):

Yeah. So about the age I was when dad left, and again, I don’t even realize I’m saying it, but got to stop and say, why am I angry? All I said was, Hey, you believe my dad left me when I was that age pointing at CJ, who’s seven, and you said, “You’re going to need to forgive your dad.” And I said, “I forgave him years ago.” And then you said “When he calls, you don’t even talk. You just hold the phone out here and you say, ‘Okay, see you,’ and you hang up.”

Ann (13:16):

You roll your eyes. You don’t want to have a relationship with him. You don’t want to be around him.

Dave (13:20):

So there were some real symptoms saying you’ve got to forgiveness issue with your dad. And so I started a journey, and it was a journey I thought would be a week or two because I know Ephesians 4:32 says, “Just as God has forgiven you, forgive others.” So we didn’t deserve forgiveness from God. We are sinners who have rebelled against Him. We have turned our back on Him. We have spit on Him in many ways. We have cursed His name, and He forgives us with His death on the cross. And just as He has forgiven us who do not deserve it, He says, “I’m commanding you as a follower of me to forgive others who do not deserve it,” whether it’s your dad or your mom, your spouse, whoever it is. And again, I thought, “Okay, I know this. I’ve preached this. I’ve taught this. I’ve led Bible studies.”

Ann (14:09):

How long did you think it would take?

Dave (14:10):

A couple weeks, maybe a month. I’m like, “Let’s do this. You’re right. I haven’t forgiven my dad.” And again, I hadn’t even connected the chronic anger to it at that point but—

Ann (14:20):

How did you start the journey? Somebody’s listening thinking, “Okay, I think that’s me. There are some things I haven’t even dealt with. How do you start?”

Dave (14:29):

For me, I started with prayer. “Okay, God, I want to start this journey. How do I start this journey?” The next day, again, I ask God this, “Take me on a journey.” The next day a buddy runs into me at a grocery store. What am I doing at a grocery store? Never am I in a grocery store.

Ann (14:48):

You would never go to a grocery store.

Dave (14:50):

You sent me there with the list. So I’m trying to find milk, I don’t even know where it is. And I’m walking around and Jay walks up to me, he goes, “Dude, what are you doing here?” I’m like, “Look, I got the list.” Every guy that’s got a list, his wife sent him there. So here I am. And he goes, “I can’t believe you’re here. I’m reading a book. It’s in my car. I thought of you when I read this book.” I’m like, what is it? “I’ll be right back.” He runs out to the car, he comes back in, he hands me a book by an author who is now dead, but I think he’s the premier writer on forgiveness. Lewis Smedes, S-M-E-D-E-S. In fact, we’ll put a link to his book at FamilyLifeToday.com in the show notes. Right Bruce?

Ann (15:29):

Are they still selling it?

Dave (15:31):

Yeah, you can still get it. It’s called Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve. We’ve had Lisa Terkhurst on. Her forgiveness book is awesome.

Ann:

So good.

Dave:

So there’s a lot of great stuff. But back then, this is the book he handed me, and Jay had been reading it, and he hands it to me.

Ann (15:47):

What did you think when he handed it to you?

Dave (15:49):

I thought “I thought I had covered all this up” because he’s in my church, so he’s heard me preach for years.

Ann (15:54):

Was he in your small group at that time?

Dave (15:55):

Yeah, and—anyway, it’s like he could identify when he read it, something I couldn’t even see. Dave needs to forgive his dad. He knew.

Ann:

Wow.

Dave:

So he handed it to me, and I just prayed the day before “God, take me on a journey.” Well I thought, “Okay, I better read this book.”

Ann (16:10):

I mean stop and think about that.

Dave (16:12):

I know. I’m never in a grocery store and I’m there that day and he’s—in the same 15 minutes he’s there. Boom.

Ann (16:18):

And you’re not the guy that’s like, “Oh.” You’re not the miraculous kind of—but that’s pretty incredible.

Dave (16:26):

I knew I had to read this book, and guess what? I read it in a day.

Ann (16:31):

Because it’s not too big.

Dave (16:31):

It’s not that long. And I realized when I read it, “Okay, this may take a while.” I didn’t think it’d take years, but I knew it’d take more than a couple weeks. And then Lewis walks you through a four-step process that I did, and it sort of works. I don’t remember exactly what the four words he used. I changed it. I preached on this over the years to these four words, hurt, hate, healing, homecoming. So the first thing Smede says is you’ve got to connect to how you’ve been hurt by this person.

Ann (17:09):

Let me read this opening paragraph in the book on hurt. “If you live long enough, chances are you’ll be hurt by someone you counted on to be your friend. And if you’re like me, you may let that hurt fester and grow until it stifles your joy. When that happens, you have entered the first stage of forgiving.” When you read that, what did you think?

Dave (17:33):

I thought, “Oh boy.” I just couldn’t see it. He even asked this question: will we let our pain hang onto our hearts where it will eat away our joy? Or will we use the miracle of forgiving to heal the hurt we didn’t deserve? And so he says, you go from, if you haven’t dealt with that hurt, you go to hate. Now hate’s a strong word. Let me read you, his definition. He says, “You cannot shake the memory of how much you are hurt, and you cannot wish your enemy well. You sometimes want the person who hurt you to suffer as you are suffering.” Everybody does that.

Ann (18:10):

Every single a person does that, don’t we?

Dave (18:12):

Yeah.

Ann (18:12):

I’m thinking of even church hurt, like people in the church that have hurt you and it feels so wrong. It feels justified to have these emotions.

Dave (18:21):

Well, it always feels justified, whoever it is.

Ann (18:23):

You’re right.

Dave (18:24):

Dad, Mom.

Ann (18:25):

Yeah. You probably thought, “He doesn’t deserve my life.”

Dave (18:28):

He doesn’t. He had affairs. He broke his vows. He didn’t show up you. You have every reason to mask your hurt and feel the hate—maybe hates too strong a word, but displeasure. I’m not going to wish him well. Are you kidding me? He doesn’t deserve it. He hasn’t earned it. And I know there are people watching or listening right now that’s where they’re living with their dad or their mom or their spouse.

Ann (18:53):

I remember you said this, you lay in bed and are consumed by thoughts about them and wanting them to pay because they deserve it.

Dave (19:04):

Yeah, and so Smede says you have to go on this spiritual, he calls it spiritual surgery where God heals your heart from the inside out. And it’s like this surgery, that spiritual nature, because you can’t just get rid of those feelings. You’ve got to invite God into this. I had sort of stiffed armed God, like, “I’m not going to let you in, and he doesn’t deserve my forgiveness.”

Ann (19:31):

Okay, help me make sense of that. You don’t want him in because you don’t want to forgive your dad.

Dave (19:37):

I don’t.

Ann (19:37):

And you know that God will want, He wants you to.

Dave (19:39):

Yeah, and so you keep them out. But healing begins when you say, “Okay, God, I can’t forgive. I need to forgive. You’ve commanded me to forgive. I need you to give me the power to forgive.” I mean, Smede says, he says, “You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.” That’s one of his definitions of forgiveness; is you actually wish them well. You want well for their life. And for me, that took five years. The two-week journey became a four- or five-year journey. It was daily. It was softening of my heart, calling my dad, letting him into my life again.

Ann (20:29):

Did you know that you had reached that point because you could wish him well?

Dave (20:33):

Yeah, but it took five years.

Ann (20:34):

That’s what I’m saying.

Dave (20:35):

Yeah.

Ann (20:36):

After five years—

Dave (20:37):

I mean, the best quote in the book, and I remember dropping the book when I read this, literally dropped it. He said, “When you forgive someone, you set a prisoner free only to discover that you’re the prisoner.” That’s when I dropped the book. I was like, “I thought I was locking him up. He doesn’t deserve to be back in my life. He’s made decisions that has pushed him out of my life and I’m going to make sure he stays out.” And I thought I was locking him up. And when I read that quote, I’m like, “I’m locked up. I can’t become the husband you deserve, the dad my kids need.” The anger thing is connected to forgiveness. It was the first time I started thinking, “So if I can choose,”—and it’s a choice, not a feeling—”if I can choose to forgive my dad, to wish him well, to give up my right to punish him,” and he deserves to be punished. And what I didn’t realize then, he had already been punished by my mom, by us. He had gone through—

Ann (21:34):

—by the circumstances.

Dave (21:35):

A lot of things. But forgiveness means I’m going to give up that right. God’s got it. God’s punished that sin on the cross. God forgave me. I’m going to forgive him. So it was a choice, and I didn’t realize it, but when I forgave my dad, I think I became a man.

Ann (21:54):

I do too. But let me go back to that because you gave him access to your life. But some people are listening thinking “This person was so abusive or so narcissistic or so harmful in many ways, maybe emotional. I don’t want to give them access to my life. Can I forgive them with still placing boundaries around myself?”

Dave (22:17):

Forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation. They’re two different things. So yeah, you can forgive someone and not have a relationship with them. They may be toxic; they may be dangerous.

Ann (22:26):

And you could still wish them well.

Dave (22:28):

Yeah, you can forgive them. You can love them. You can say, “But you’re not going to be in my life. It’s too toxic. You’re not a safe person. But I forgive you and I actually wish you well, and I hope you find Jesus.” But that doesn’t mean you really, and my relationship with my dad didn’t become awesome. It was definitely better.

Ann (22:47):

But we did give him access. Yeah, it was better. Yeah. He was not—he wasn’t dangerous or—

Dave (22:51):

He wasn’t abusive. He was actually a Christian now. He is totally a different man.

Ann (22:56):

Super kind.

Dave (22:56):

Yeah, very kind, very loving. I think he had immense regret.

Ann:

Me too.

Dave:

He told me the biggest mistake of his life was divorcing mom, years later.

So if you go back to the four steps of forgiveness, according to Smede, you got hurt—we talked about that—hate. You’ve got healing. And then there could be—this is optional—a homecoming. They may be dead so there’s no homecoming. My dad was still alive, so I’ll never forget the day we were playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I was down there with Detroit Lions. I spoke to at our chapel service. And Dad came to it. He lived in Florida. He was an airline pilot. And back then I didn’t go on the team bus into the stadium. I went myself. And so dad drove me over to the stadium. We’re sitting outside. I’ll never forget. I’m looking at the Tampa Bay Stadium, which is no longer there. Now they’re in a new stadium. But I said to my dad, “Hey Dad, I need to say something to you that I haven’t said in a long time, if ever. I love you and I forgive you.” I’ll never forget. He turns to me, and he goes, “Forgive me. What the blank for?”

(24:12):

It was just this. I am so glad Smedes had said they may respond beautifully, and you have a great hug. They may be dead. They may say, “What the blank for?” I mean, I want to say you have no idea. And he just sort of looked me. He didn’t really, and guess what? Forgiveness isn’t about the other person. It’s about you. I was free whether he received it or not. Some homecomings are beautiful. Some are sort of like that. Our homecoming happened over the next several years. It got better. It’s not about them, it’s about you.

Ann (24:47):

Yeah. I wonder what he would’ve said had you asked him that or told him that years later? I think he would have responded different. I think you—

Dave (24:55):

Oh, I think he knew over years he did know.

Ann (24:58):

Yeah.

Dave (24:58):

He realized.

Ann (25:00):

When he told you his greatest regret was divorcing your mom. That was later. So yeah, I think you’re right. And you did, let me just say, your anger didn’t go away overnight, but eventually you didn’t have that explosiveness.

Dave (25:19):

Chronic anger is gone.

Ann (25:20):

It is gone.

Dave (25:21):

I’m not saying you don’t get angry, I don’t get angry. We get angry.

Ann (25:24):

We were angry this morning.

Dave (25:26):

Yeah. I was angry when I walked in here because you left my iPad in a car and it’s 90 degrees in Florida, and I got to walk a half a mile to get it. Maybe a hundred yards but—and you got to deal with that anger. But chronic is a deep seated that’s connected to forgiveness. And I’m just saying there’s somebody listening or watching today.

Ann (25:45):

What would you say to them?

Dave (25:47):

Start the journey.

Ann (25:48):

You would?

Dave (25:49):

Take the first step, say, “God, I need to forgive so-and-so. Will you help me start the journey?”

Before we continue, let me say this. At FamilyLife, we really believe strong families can change the world. And when you become a FamilyLife partner, you can make that happen.

Ann (26:09):

And I don’t know if you realize this, but your monthly gift helps us equip marriages and families with biblical tools that they can count on.

Dave (26:17):

And that’s a pretty cool deal. And we also want to send you exclusive updates behind the scenes access and an invitation to our private partner community, which is also pretty cool. So join us and let’s reach marriages and families together.

Ann (26:30):

And you can go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click the donate button to join today. That’s FamilyLifeToday.com.

Let’s think through what we would say as a spouse is listening this. They’re thinking, “This is for my spouse. They’re angry. I know that they’ve got issues they haven’t dealt with in the past. How do I approach them?” It’s such a sensitive topic.

Dave (26:53):

What would you say? Because you said it to me.

Ann (26:55):

I think pray before you talk about it. I don’t think I prayed much about it. I wasn’t unkind in how I said it, but kind of observe them. I think I would be very gentle and ask God, “Lord, help shape the words that I’m going to use. Help me to have the right timing” is kind of our book. When should I say it? How should I say it? And God will give you wisdom. James 1 says, “Ask and he will give you wisdom generously.” Ask the timing, ask the way to do it. But you’re a team. You’re one. And just say, “Hun, I feel like—I’m wondering”—that’s a good way to say it. “I’m wondering if maybe I’m seeing some anger in you or some depression in you,” because even depression is anger turned inward. So “I’m seeing some things in you, and I’m wondering, do you think it could be a forgiveness issue?” Have the conversation. If I would’ve asked you that, you would’ve probably said “No.”

Dave (27:50):

Yeah. But then later I might’ve thought about it.

Ann:

Exactly.

Dave:

I would say to the person that’s wondering, if your anger is a little bit deeper than you think, you ask the question.

Ann:

Ask your spouse.

Dave:

Ask your spouse, ask some guys in your life say, “Hey, you think I could have an anger thing that’s a little deeper than it should be?” Or “Do you think I have somebody in my life I need to forgive?” That’s courage to ask somebody that question.

Ann (28:15):

For sure.

Dave (28:16):

And say, “Man, I want you to help me identify that,” and then start the journey. I mean, that journey changed our life.

Ann (28:24):

Totally changed our life.

Dave (28:26):

Changed every second of every day of our life.

Ann (28:28):

And you’re a different dad because of it.

Dave (28:31):

Yeah. I mean, I really don’t think I passed that on to our kids.

Ann:

I don’t either.

Dave:

Because I dealt with it before they were three or four years old.

Ann (28:39):

Yeah.

Dave (28:39):

It was early. So you got to deal with it. The stakes are high.

Ann (28:45):

And as a spouse be on their team, say, “Maybe I have that issue too. If I’m blind to that, let me know,” and maybe even listen to the podcast together or send it and say, “Let’s talk about this.” And then to say, “How can I help you? I want to go on that path with you.” Maybe we both read Smede’s book or Lisa TerKeurst’s book is really good on this too. It’s called Forgiving What You Can’t Forget.

Dave (29:07):

Yeah, we’ll put a link to three books. Alright, you ready? In our show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com, we’ll put a link for Lewis Smede’s book Forgive and Forget, for Lisa TerKeurst’s book Forgiving What You Can’t Forget, and for Dave and Ann Wilson’s book Vertical Marriage because we do a whole section of what you just heard us talk about. We do a whole chapter on anger and forgiveness so that might help you as well.

Ann (29:32):

Well, I’m really glad you were brave enough to go on the journey because you’re a different person, and Jesus has set you free from it.

Dave (29:38):

He’ll set you free too.

Ann (29:39):

Why don’t you pray just for the people that are like, “Ugh, is this me?”

Dave (29:43):

Lord, I pray that somebody listening or watching today, something pricked in their heart like, “I think I have some issues. I think they’re talking to me.” Lord, I pray for that person, that husband, that wife or son or daughter, that they would have the courage to step into it. Don’t avoid it anymore. Open that piece of luggage and say, “God, will you step into this area and heal me so that you can heal us. Give me the power.” Forgiven people forgive people. I’m forgiven, but I feel like I can’t forgive. So God, we can’t do it without your Holy Spirit power. So I pray for the Holy Spirit to give power to people that have never been able to forgive. You take them starting right here, right now on a journey to get to complete forgiveness and set them free to be the man, the woman, the husband, the wife, the mom, the dad, the grandparent that you’ve called them and created them to be. So we give them to you and invite you to do your work. In Jesus name.

Ann (30:55):

And just a last little thing as we were praying, as you were praying, I was thinking about the person that’s been gone through a really hard divorce, and maybe you’re in a new marriage or a blended family and you haven’t forgiven your former spouse. Man, maybe this is a journey that God wants to take you on because you don’t want to take that anger or that unforgiveness into this new relationship. So I hope we’ll all go on that journey together.

Hey, thanks for watching and if you liked this episode—

Dave (31:28):

You better like it.

Ann (31:28):

—just hit that like button.

Dave (31:30):

And we’d like you to subscribe. So all you got to do is go down and hit the subscribe. I can’t say the word subscribe. Hit the subscribe button. I don’t think I can say this word.

Ann:

Like and subscribe.

Dave:

Look at that. You say it so easy. Subscribe. There it goes.

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