"Be angry and do not sin" HOW?

Have you ever stepped into a wad of slightly melted gun? It sticks to your shoe and every time you take a step the gum sticks. This is how I feel about the emotion of anger.

I know anger is a God given emotion for our own protection. I also know sometimes I get stuck and can't seem to move on. "Be angry and do not sin" Ephesians 4:26 I remember when I first learned this, I found it very confusing. It left me with this basic question. How? How am I supposed to be angry and not sin?

I smiled when I looked it up and read the context it was in. It is always helpful to me to see where a verse fits in. When I looked up Ephesians four what I found is that the first verse gives me a clue to where the twenty sixth verse fits in."I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Not getting stuck in anger means that my focus is not just on my rights but on," maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

I sometimes suffer from chronic niceness. What that means is that in order to maintain a form of peace I am not honest with how I feel. How interesting it is to find that the verse that precedes the one on anger states,"Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another." Chronic niceness is a form of falsehood. Sometimes to speak truth you risk making someone angry. But it goes both ways sometimes when someone tells me the truth about my fault it makes me angry. This is messy, messy, messy.

I really see how important it is for me not to sin in my anger when I read the verse that follows the one about anger,"and  give no opportunity to to the devil". When I allow anger to stick in my mind I open the door to the one whose mission is to,"steal, kill, and destroy." Farther down in the paragraph I read that I am no to grieve the Holy Spirit. I am to let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from me, along with all malice. Being kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave me.

My question of how is answered as I read and meditate on Ephesians 4. Sometimes I need more than a verse lifted from it's context. Sometimes I need to go back and find where the verse is and seek to understand what the full counsel of God is."All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:16

Lord Jesus, thank you for your word that teaches me, rebukes me, corrects me, and trains me. Thank you for not only telling me how to live but giving me your Spirit to enable me.