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Appropriate spiritual care varies from situation to situation. Some people need direct, strong confrontation while others need gentle compassion. We must evaluate people, and we must tailor ministry to the need of the moment. Otherwise, we may do more harm than good. All of us can improve our ministry by building good instincts for spiritual care. By this I mean we can become increasingly adept at reading people and situations and at responding appropriately to them.

In my last post I argued that anger is a severe problem we can’t ignore. Even if you despise your anger, you may not believe you will ever make progress against it. However, the Scriptures tell a different story. This post offers practical counsel for overcoming anger.

In my last post, I outlined three broad principles for overcoming anger. Unfortunately, knowing these principles is often the easy part of helping an angry person. The hard part is overcoming the obstacles to sound counsel that anger creates. Therefore, this post offers four practical ideas for helping others overcome anger.

Anger is a bigger problem than we often realize. The Bible warns us about the dangers of anger and commands us to put it away. This post challenges us to recognize the wickedness of anger and how it makes us vulnerable to Satan's attacks, so that we will do the hard work of putting anger away through the strength of Christ.

I don’t like sorrow. You might respond, “Of course, who does?” But I really don’t like sorrow. My natural instinct is to flush it out as quickly and aggressively as possible. I don’t want to think about what is wrong, and I especially don’t want to talk about what is wrong. I want to smash my pain into a tiny ball and launch it into outer space. But the longer I did pastoral ministry, the harder it became to flush sorrow. The weight of my responsibilities became heavier as did the spiritual battles I watched people fight and sometimes lose. Every time I grieved, I tried to drive out my sorrow and experience what I thought was joy. But my understanding of joy and sorrow began to change when I studied biblical joy for a sermon series, and it has continued to grow as I have meditated on the subject.