Mad at God

I got mad at God today. Busting mad. Shake my fist at the sky cuss-out loud mad.

“WHAT!” you say? That’s right, you heard correctly. It was time to get down to business. I won’t go into the details of why I was so mad because they are between God and myself, but I will tell you that they were ultimately about getting things my way, in my time.

We think we cannot get mad at God. I think that we are wrong. I felt so horrible at all these thoughts running through my head about God. I wanted to forget about him and do something else. Then I remembered that God Himself said, “be angry and sin not.” Now I am not advocating a constant anger towards God and I am for sure not insinuating that God is ever wrong. I am saying that sometimes it FEELS like He is wrong, and we act like we don’t notice. This is dishonesty. That kind of passive aggressive stuff only works on people. Most of the time, when we are angry in life, we are angry with God but are too afraid to admit it. We focus it to other people: our spouse, our kids, or ourselves. I think this prolongs healing and understanding of the God who loves us. I think that God wants to hear our anger towards Him rather than hear our namby-pamby beating around the bush prayers, never expressing our frustrations and fears and confusion. He wants to hear what we have to say even if we are angry, because we are being honest. When did God finally answer Job? When Job let it out. Job, the faithful servant, finally sat down and got real after his family had been killed, his cows and sheep died, house burned down, and boils had covered his body. He finally spit it out. “God, why did you even make me? I regret the day I was born. I DEMAND AN ANSWER!”

Now what God said was not exactly pleasant and if you read closely He did not really answer Job’s questions, but what He did remind Job of was who He was and who Job was. Many times when we are honest with God and we go ahead and let the anger out, we immediately feel a sense of calm and understanding. Sometimes, like today, we will probably be embarrassed. We might cry, and we will probably apologize. This is healthy. The woman who cries out to God after loosing a child, who is totally broken, full of anger, pain, hurt, confusion, is closer to God than she has ever been. It is the soul who Shuts God out and hardens the heart towards God, denying that God could allow such a thing, that is far from God. Believing that God, if there is a God, is not good. This ultimately leads to denying the existence of God and loss of faith.

Consider the Psalms. They are full of David or the Psalmist crying out to God in desperation. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” This was the Psalm that Jesus quoted from the cross. If you read the entire Psalm you see a perfect example of a man who is angry and alone. He is crying out to God, and after each phrase he (actually God) answers His own questions. Listen to how he begins the Psalm and ends it.

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me?
So far from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, 

by night, and am not silent.




Then by the end:

28 for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations.
29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—those who cannot keep themselves alive.
30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord.
31 They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn—for he has done it.


It is not ironic that Jesus said this Psalm (at least the first part) from the Cross. He knew this psalm well I am sure. I am also sure he probably knew the rest and maybe, just maybe he said the rest. We cannot know for sure and for some reason we are not supposed to know. The point is that it was the ultimate moment of despair. God’s will is not easy to swallow sometimes but it is always the best for us. Always.

I think we should think of anger at God as something akin to vomiting when we are sick. This sounds crude but it is really what it is like. Anger at God is in us. We cannot help but feel it at times, and it MUST come out. When we do, we may not like what we hear. This is good. Sometimes God does not answer immediately but what you have done is acknowledged Him instead of denying Him. You have been honest with God, and He hears an honest prayer. “If with all your heart you truly seek me, you shall ever surly find me” It is you at your most raw and exposed. He knows you are mad anyway, why not get it out and deal with it? Let it out. He can take it. He can take the worst we have to offer. His tolerance for our anger is high. Just as that Mother’s tolerance is high for a child who is angry, screaming that he or she hates her and wants her to let him or her go. However, the mother knows if she does they might harm themselves so they hold on, tight.

Just remember, He will answer, and when He does, reconsider arguing. He put you through this test for a reason. If you don’t learn the lesson the first time, He will put you through it again. I like what Rich Mullins said about arguing with God “It don’t do any good to argue with God because He always wins. He bloodies your nose and then gives you a ride home on his bicycle.”

Thoughts?