Sunset

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. (Ephesians 4:26-27)

Newfound Gap, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

How many times have I let the sun set on my anger? How often have I let it set 365 times--or more--on my anger? Too many times.

I am a grudge holder. Oh, I can get the most righteous anger imaginable! And I hold on to it with white-knuckled determination. I can't let go, even if I want to. Even though I know I should.

It's wrong, I know. And a lot of times, my anger isn't so righteous. Sometimes I'm whipped up into a mental frenzy by something I've assumed about someone else--something that later turned out not to be true. Sometimes I'm angry because someone is doing the same exact Bad Thing that I do, and I'm more mad at myself than at the other person.

I'm probably giving you the impression that I'm someone who walks around angry all the time. That isn't the case; I'm usually pretty easy-going, and it takes a lot to make me mad. But once I do get mad? It's hard to let go. A thousand suns may set on that anger before I'm able to release it.

Why shouldn't we let the sun go down on our anger? I have a pretty good idea of one of the reasons.

Anger devours. It might slash at you with a mouthful of sharp teeth, but mostly it just gnaws away at you. Day after day after day, it eats away at your soul. You grow smaller as it grows larger. Anger robs you of your ability to find joy. It takes away your peace.

Oh, it feels good to be angry, without a doubt; there's a certain delicious satisfaction in imagining the eventual comeuppance of the person you're mad at.

But ultimately, anger destroys us on the inside. So our little 24-hour days are gifts, really; if we can confess, repent, or reconcile sooner rather than later, then you've limited the time that anger will eat away at you.

I am still struggling with anger at some of my coworkers from a job I left over a year ago. It's not something I deal with every day, or even every week, but every now and then, something will trigger it. Just this morning, I read an article about how easy it is to make false, negative assumptions about people, rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt. As I read it, I felt the pain of having been the object of such false assumptions at my old job, and the old anger flared up again.

To forgive is painful, and the more there is to forgive, the more painful it is. Sometimes I wonder if my anger--my delicious, righteous, fully justified (in my mind) anger--is just a way for me not to have to deal with the pain of forgiveness. To forgive the people who hurt me would mean letting go of that comforting anger and moving on. It would mean (in my mind) letting them "get away with it." It would mean letting the comforting old bitterness die.

It would mean freeing myself of this gnawing, soul-devouring, joy-stealing anger.

I have prayed about this anger, but I don't think I've prayed about it very hard; there's a part of me that cherishes it.

I need to move on. I need to let go of all that, and just let myself sit and enjoy the beauty of the sunset, with no hard feelings dimming my eyes, with no righteous grudge clouding the view.