We can be angry and happy at the same time. It just depends on what we do with our anger and what we don't do with it. In Scripture, we are told to be angry and not sin. In the same verse that uses the word angry, the word wrath is used in referring to that anger, which tells us that the anger being spoken of is an extreme anger. And we are told to not let the sun go down on it.

As with many people, I used to think we were being told to get over that anger by bedtime. So, as a dutiful Christian, I would suppress my anger and instead, helplessly feel hurt. I say, "helplessly," because when someone other than ones-self is the cause of ones hurt, that brings on helplessness. Ones happiness no longer depends on ones-self but rather on another person, a person who has caused great harm and might have no plans to right that wrong.

We read scripture that clearly tells us how to be happy. It's right there in the first Psalm. But what we find further along in another Psalm is that when we go down into the pits, we don't do what we need to do, where the Lord is concerned. Just as we have a harder time taking care of our physical body when we are down in the pits, we also have a hard time doing what we need to do for our spirit. We end up phyiscally and spiritually unhealthy.

Let's think about this logically. Does it even make sense that we could get over an extreme anger by bedtime? How about anger towards evil people in this world, those who take the lives of innocent people? Are we to not be angry with them at bedtime?

Clearly not letting the sun go down on our wrath means something else. Don't let the sun go down on something, is an idiom that has been used throughout history. Don't let the sun go down on something, is saying, don't let that be your undoing, the death of you. Today, Paul could say, "Don't let it be the death of you."

Consider people we hear about in the news who let the sun go down on their wrath, who let it be their undoing and lead to taking the life of another person and or end their own life. These are abrupt deaths that we hear about in the news. What we do not hear about in the news are the countless slow deaths from mistreatment that sends a person down into the pits, where the person's health goes downhill, physically and spiritually, due to emotional decline from deep hurt.

Dare I say we actually do what Paul was saying in Ephesians and actually be angry with who has upset us so greatly! Yep! Don't sin. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath. But do not suppress it. When we suppress anger, it does not go away. It is still in us, it's just deep down and undealt with and manifesting itself as extreme emotional pain that causes us serious health issues. And it will be our undoing. We are basically called to control our anger, or it will control us. And we cannot control something that we do not admit is there. When we do not admit to our anger for whatever reason, misinterpreted scripture, guilt, misplaced compassion, or giving ear to someone telling us we should not be angry, then we bury that anger and it gives way to great hurt that robs us of our health.

And dare I say that we either admit to our anger and assign it to who caused us such harm or it will automatically be assigned to us and we risk becoming an actual angry person. There is a difference between being angry at someone and being an angry person. Undealt with anger that has not been placed to its rightful place but instead has been buried, can turn us into an angry person, an angry depressed person, a sickly shell of a person.

Just five verses down from where we are told to be angry and sin not, we are told to put away all wrath and anger. One is a reaction to wrong doing, while the other is being an actual angry person. If being angry could not be done without sinning, then Scripture would not tell us to be angry and sin not. We are also told in this same chapter to be kind and to forgive. Hence, if it were not possible to forgive while being angry at a person, then Scripture would never allow for us to be angry.

Living with extreme hurt, we risk becoming an actual angry person. By thinking we should not be angry with someone, we bury the anger, suffer from extreme hurt that causes depression and gives the devil a place to torment us, and the risk of being an angry person becomes a very real possibility. 

It is not that we will never be hurt over what happened. It is not that we will never cry. It is that we will not live in a constant state of sadness from feeling hurt by another person that results in constant unanswered questions as to why that person did what was done to us. We will have control over our emotions instead of the person who has harmed us having control over our emotions.

When we do not live with a deep hurt from another person, we are free to be happy even though we might still remain hurt over the outcome of whatever harm that person caused. (Dealing with the hurt from an outcome, a situation, such as loss, is much easier than dealing with being hurt by the actual person involved in the loss.) You see, in Christ, we have a right to be happy. God does not want us to be an angry person. He does not even want us hanging out with an angry person. While we have a right to be angry at those who bring such harm, we do not have a right to be an angry person. We have a right to be happy. And being happy is much more attainable, when dealing with hurt from a situation, rather than hurt by a person. Hurt from a situation can lie quietly in the depth of our heart, much like a death. Then we can go on and find happiness again, and someday find forgiveness for the person who upset us so greatly. It is easier to forgive someone we are angry with, than to forgive someone who hurt us and does not see fit to make things right with us. And it is so great to have forgiveness.

Note: As believers in Christ, we can have happiness even with hurt over a situation, knowing someday we will go home and all our tears will be wiped away.

Ephesians 4:26-27 KJV
26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: 27 Neither give place to the devil.

Psalm 4:4 KJV
4 Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.

Ephesians 4:31-32 KJV
31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:  32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Proverbs 22:24-25 KJV
24 Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go:  25 Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.