Is it a sin to be sad?

Josh Stuart

“I’m just not happy, and I’m ready to end our relationship.” 

Her words hit me hard. As I drove back to the hotel where I was staying for work, I couldn’t help but question where everything had gone so wrong. I thought our relationship was finally moving in the right direction, but now my wife of 13 years was leaving me, seemingly out of nowhere. 

“She’s just mad and will come to her senses soon,” I told myself the next morning. 

When I landed in Greenville that Friday night, my wife refused to see me. On Sunday afternoon, she met me at our home (she had moved in with her parents for the time being) and calmly explained that she didn’t want to be married to me anymore. Then she kissed me on the cheek, told me she would always love me, and walked out the door. 

Over the next seven months, I fell into a black hole of depression. At the time, my job required me to leave town Monday through Friday each week. My three kids stayed with me every other weekend. On the weekends I was alone, I spent my time in an endless circle of thoughts. 

The emotional rollercoaster was overwhelming and exhausting. It was the darkest time of my life, and several times, I seriously contemplated ending it all.

Feeling Sad Isn’t a Sin

If your upbringing was similar to mine, you learned early on that emotions considered negative, such as sadness or anger, were “ungodly.” They should be dealt with internally and hidden from others, so you give the appearance that everything is alright — even when it isn’t.  

I found myself feeling guilty that I was upset about my family breaking up. I began wondering how godly I would have to be before I started feeling happy again. After all, a godly Christian is always happy no matter what. Or at least that’s what I thought. 

God created us in His image, and our emotions are part of what makes us like Him. The Bible is filled with examples of God showing love, compassion, joy, and gladness. But God also displays sadness, anger, and jealousy. The difference between God’s feelings and our feelings is that God does not have a fallen nature like us. His emotions are pure in motive, where ours are often self-serving.

God is saddened when we turn away from Him and the good plans He has for our lives. He gets angry at sin because He knows that path leads to destruction by puffing up pride in our hearts and pushing us away from Him. He is jealous of our affections and wants to be first in our lives because that is what He created us for. 

So What Do I Do With What I Feel?

We can’t always control how we feel, but we can control our reactions to how we feel. We have a choice about how much we’re going to act on what we’re feeling. And, how we choose to respond is the difference between wrong and right, between sinning against others and surrendering to God, between falling for Satan’s schemes or trusting God’s promises.

We can’t always control how we feel, but we can control our reactions to how we feel.

It’s not a sin to be angry, but anger can lead to sin when we allow anger and bitterness to consume us, destroying our relationships with God and the people around us. It’s not a sin to grieve the loss of a family member or the end of a relationship, but grief can lead to sin when we isolate ourselves or allow relationships to take God’s place in our lives. 

Emotions are a part of the human experience for all of us. Our feelings give us the opportunity to learn more about ourselves and what we truly value, good or bad. If we get angry often, we may need to reevaluate our priorities and whether those things that are making us angry are truly important.

Jesus, who was fully God and fully human, experienced a whole range of emotions, including sadness and anger (John 11:33-35, Mark 11:15-16). Yet Jesus lived without sin, showing us how to experience emotions without allowing them to lead us to sin. 

Brokenness Can Be the Start of Something Beautiful

The emotions we try so hard to avoid — sadness, anger, grief — are often where change begins. Paul, an early church leader, was reminded of this truth after reprimanding one of the churches he helped to start. Paul’s words stung, but that hurt caused the church to go through a self-examination that drew its followers closer to God. 

“For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us,” Paul writes. “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done” (2 Corinthians 7:9-11).

Even our worst experiences can bring about positive outcomes, depending on how we choose to respond. We tend to forget that God is actively working in all things for our good if we love him (Romans 8:28).  

God used the grief I experienced when my marriage started crumbling to bring about much-needed change and repentance in my heart. I realized this was not a situation that I could fix in my own strength. I had to humble myself and allow God to do it for me. 

I renewed the relationship with Jesus I had abandoned more than a decade ago, and the changes my wife saw in me over time led to her renewing her relationship with Him as well. This ultimately led us back into a relationship with one another. 

Looking back, I am still amazed by the miracles God brought about during that time. I know none of them would have been possible without first experiencing intense sadness, then choosing to respond the way I knew Jesus would want me to in spite of how I felt. 

Whenever I doubt my faith or am tempted to fall back into old habits, I remember that time in my life to remind me that God is real, active, powerful, and faithful. Whatever situation you are facing today, remember: God always delivers on his promises, even if it isn’t in the way we are expecting.