In Your Anger Do Not Sin
What do you do when your plans go awry? Do you roll with the punches? Retreat until you've licked your wound have everything figured out? Or do you turn to God?
Last week, I had the unexpected expense and complication of my computer screen being damaged. It was sixteen days out of warranty, and I have no idea what happened to cause the damage. I went to bed and it was fine, opened it the next day, and the middle was black.
The nearest repair shop is a good distance away, and while I was in the area for something else, the shop had me take my computer back with me because it would be several days before the replacement screen came in. Then, bright and early the next morning, I got an email informing me the part had arrived.
And in my humanness, I got angry at God. Not the my screen had been damaged—I'm under no illusion that being a Christian exempts me from trouble—but that He wouldn't have had me just leave the computer at the shop. I cried out to God, but when I didn't feel His presence or comfort, I chose to turn from Him. And in turning from Him, I opened myself to temptation and fell headlong into sin.
Though I knew the decisions I was making were wrong, I continued to keep my back turned to God, telling myself I was justified because God wasn't showing up like I thought He should. It took several days of God nudging me through songs, my family, and sermons for me to do what I knew was right: quit sinning and repent.
As I've continued to deal with the fallout of not having a device bigger than a phone to do my work on, I've still been faced with answering the question "How will I respond when god doesn't show up as I expect Him to?". While my response has changed—turning to God instead of sin—the feelings of being alone and the lack of palpable comfort from God remain.
It's not been easy, and it's been just a few days. I can't say that I'm filled with grace or trust, but there is peace in returning to the Bible and resting on what I know: that God is good, and that no matter what I feel, the truth is that He will never leave me nor forsake me. And as I've forced myself to read the Bible, I was reminded of Ephesians 4:26a, "Be angry and do not sin;".
I always associated this with not getting angry and punching stuff, murdering someone, etc.—things normally associated with anger. But God showed me it also applies to what I had done—I let my anger crowd out and overrule what I know to be true, using it to justify my sin. My anger wasn't a sin, but my allowing it to rule me and direct my choices was.
Remember this the next time you're angry: anger isn't necessarily a sin, but allowing it to rule you—whether that means you lash out or withdraw or something else—is.