We can be happy and angry 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 in speaking of that wrath, we are told to not let the sun go down on that wrath.

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 something or someone other than ones-self is the cause of our hurt, then we are helpless. Our happiness no longer depends on ones-self. If the other person(s) or the circumstance(s) remain unchanged, our happiness is hindered.

Oh, 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 the pits, so too, we have a hard time doing what we need to do for our spirit. We end up phyiscal 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. And I have come to believe it does mean something else, something quite common, a common 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. Don't let that bring about the death of someone, someone else or even of yourself.

Think about the people who we hear about in the news who let the sun go down on their wrath, who let it be their undoing and take the life of another person or end their own life. And these are the 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 hurt.

Dare I say we actually DO what Paul was saying in Ephesians and actually BE angry with that which upsets us or 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's still in us, it's just deep down and undealt with and manifesting itself as extreme emotional pain that causes us to detach from the circumstance(s) and or from the person(s) we are upset with. And it will be our undoing; we will do harm to someone else or to ourselves or both. 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 others 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 the something and or someone who caused us such harm or it will automatically be assigned to us and we risk becoming an actual angry person. Yes, there is a difference between being angry at something or someone and actually being an angry person. Undealt with anger that has not been placed to its rightful place but instead has been buried, can be the end of us. It can turn us into an angry person, an angry depressed person, a sickly shell of a person. It can be our undoing.

As for me. I am taking my power back, by no longer being hurt, but rather being angry at what and or at who upset me so greatly. I will not sin in that anger. I will not let the sun go down on my anger, neither harming myself by suppressing that anger, nor by harming anyone else. I am simply going to feel the anger, when I think about what happened, things that have not been resolved.

Now I can go on with my life and not be down in the pits. Now I am free to be happy. 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 what or at those who bring such harm, we do not have a right to be an angry person. We have a right to be happy. --Think about it.



Ephesians 4:26-27
King James Version

26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:

27 Neither give place to the devil.

Proverbs 22:24-25
King James Version 

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.

Ephesians 4

King James Version