Anyone who has driven one of the newer toll roads knows how it works. There is no attendant waving you through, no booth where you hand over a few coins and go on your way. There is just a camera overhead, and the charges keep adding up the farther you drive, whether you are watching for them or not. The bill shows up later, often bigger than you expected.
I have come to believe that anger works the same way. It leads us onto a road that looks free when we first turn onto it, but it never is. Every mile costs something, and the toll only goes up the longer we stay on it.
Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, “Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26, ESV). Read that verse slowly and you will notice something important. Paul does not tell us not to get angry. He assumes we will. Anger is not the sin. Anger is simply what happens when something in this broken world bumps up against something we value, and if you are breathing, it is going to happen to you. The question Paul is really asking is what we do next.
That next moment is where the road forks. On one side, we can feel the anger, take it to God honestly, and keep moving forward on the path He has for us. On the other side, we can take the exit. We can hold onto the offense, replay it, build a case against the person who hurt us, and call that grudge justice. Paul calls that second road exactly what it is a few verses later: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” (Ephesians 4:31, ESV). Notice how those six things build on each other. Bitterness leads to wrath. Wrath leads to noise and accusation. And left unchecked, it all leads to malice, which is nothing less than wanting to see someone else hurt.
As it turns out, that road is a toll road, and you are the only one paying. The person who wronged you is not lying awake replaying the conversation. They are not losing sleep over the grudge you are nursing. You are the one paying every toll, mile after mile, while they drive on without you. Hebrews warns us to watch for “the root of bitterness” that springs up among God’s people, because a root left in the ground will eventually bear fruit none of us wants (Hebrews 12:15, ESV). And John does not soften the destination one bit. He tells us plainly that whoever hates his brother is walking in darkness and does not even know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes (1 John 2:11, ESV). That is where the toll road ends. Not at satisfaction. Not at being proven right. It ends at hate, and hate is no place for a child of God to live.
But here is the good news. There is an on-ramp back to the road you were meant to be on. Paul tells us to “be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Ephesians 5:1-2, ESV). We were forgiven an unpayable debt, and in response, we get to extend the same grace to the person who owes us far less than we owed God. Colossians puts it simply: “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13, ESV). You cannot outforgive what has already been forgiven in you.
Jesus even tells us not to wait. In the Sermon on the Mount, He says to come to terms quickly with the one you are at odds with, even while you are still on the way (Matthew 5:25, ESV). Even if you are almost to the courthouse of your own resentment, it is not too late to turn around.
So here is my question for you, and it is the same one I have had to ask myself more than once. Is there a grudge you have been paying tolls on, mile after mile, that Jesus is inviting you to let go of today? The sun has not gone down yet. There is still time to take the on-ramp back to the road God has for you, and it leads somewhere far better than where that other road ends.
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