90 seconds to meltdown control!

 

“Nothing makes room for Satan more than wrath.” Thomas Manton

What can you do in 90 seconds? 39 students in South Korea believe you can do a lot. They sued the government because their college admission examination ended 90 seconds earlier than scheduled. They asked for 20 million Won (South Korean currency) which is about $15,400.00 each to compensate them for the cost of a year's studying to retake the exam. South Korean’s infamous college admission test, known as Suneung, is an eight-hour marathon with back-to-back papers in multiple subjects.
  It’s one of the hardest exams in the world and the stakes are very high. It not only determines university placements and jobs but even future relationships. The lawsuit claims that the bell rang earlier at their test site. Some students protested immediately but said that the supervisors still took their papers away. The teachers recognized the mistake before the start of the next session and gave the 90 seconds back during the lunch break, but student could only mark blank columns left on their papers and weren’t allowed to change any existing answers. The students said they were so upset that they couldn’t focus on the rest of the exam. Some reportedly gave up and returned home.
  If you Google what can be done in 90 seconds, you’ll find a myriad of suggestions. One that I loved was made by brain scientist, Jill Bolte Taylor, author of My Stroke Of Insight, which describes our ability to regulate that neurological process that she calls the 90-second rule: “When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens; any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop.”
  Essentially, it’s an update on the 10-second rule when you’re about to lose your cool. Taylor suggests that it really takes 90 seconds to gain control. Her conclusions came in response to holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl’s classic book, Man’s Search for Meaning where Frankl wrote, “When we can no longer change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves...Everything can be taken from a human but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” That inner freedom enabled Frankl to survive the Holocaust, find meaning in his personal tragedy, and empower himself. He chose his response to his circumstances instead of letting the circumstances make the choice for him.
  What sets you off? Most of us have had the experience of a situation or a person setting us off. A rude comment, a harsh social media post, bad news, something breaks down, an unexpected inconvenience and we find we’re having a meltdown. When someone or something sets us off, it’s because we’re neglecting impulse control and failing to respond positively or even righteously to an upsetting situation.
  A Christ-follower has something far better than impulse control. Galatians 5:23 tells us that “self-control” or really “Spirit-control” is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The longer we follow Christ, the more that we let the Holy Spirit be at the controls in our life, the less we’ll blow our stack when something happens that in the past would have set us off.
  We always have a choice to react or not. Unleashing our anger is sin and no one makes us sin. We freely choose to give into the sin of anger.
  Anger though can be addictive. For the moment, letting loose may feel good. Consider this – nearly every domestic dispute, fight or even murder begins with someone losing control. It may feel good until things get out of control, somebody gets hurt, or the damage cannot be rectified.
  Many angry relational explosions repeatedly follow the same script. Your spouse, child, friend or co-worker does something that’s angered you in the past, maybe several times. It happens again and you’re again having a meltdown. So, ask the Lord to help you ditch the script. Amazingly, if one of you ditches the script, the other person must ditch theirs too.
  Self-control wonderfully too can become a habit. A preventive and spiritually mature approach is making a U-turn and practicing the 90-second rule before you lose it. Constant angry reactions to things beyond our control not only create misery but can even shorten our lives. Chronic anger creates a stressful biochemical boomerang that weakens the immune system and increases the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke.
  Every believer can call on the Spirit’s power to choose moment by moment how we want to be in the world. Frequently, someone will say, “I know that I have a terrible temper. I got it from my father.” Yet, every child of God has a new Father. The New Testament calls Him “Abba” which simply means “Papa” and He doesn’t have an anger issue.
  Our world is melting down with anger. As Christ-followers, we’re not of this world. God has called us to be distinctly different.
  Personally, I come from a long line of rage-aholics. One the great works in my life by the Spirit of God is a growing sense of peace and calmness. And I know that it’s not me bringing this about, it’s Jesus. You and I are commanded to be peacemakers because we know the Prince of Peace.
  One of my favorite stories of anger being resolved is from Gordon MacDonald. His story powerfully illustrates this. MacDonald writes.
  A Nigerian woman who is a physician at a great teaching hospital in the United States came out of the crowd today to say something kind about the lecture I had just given. She introduced herself using an American name.
  “What's your African name?” I asked. She immediately gave it to me, several syllables long with a musical sound to it.
  “What does the name mean?” I wondered. She answered, “It means ‘Child who takes the anger away.’”
  When I inquired as to why she would have been given this name, she said, “My parents had been forbidden by their parents to marry. But they loved each other so much that they defied the family opinions and married anyway. For several years they were ostracized from both their families. Then my mother became pregnant with me. And when the grandparents held me in their arms for the first time, the walls of hostility came down. I became the one who swept the anger away. And that's the name my mother and father gave me.” 
  My friend, when the Lord Jesus comes into your life, that’s what He does. He takes our anger away. I know that He’s done it for me (though I’m still a work in progress) and I know that He will do it for you!

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