Let’s talk about a feeling Christians tend to think they aren’t supposed to have, especially toward God. Anger. If we’re honest, we’ve felt anger at God. Things we don’t like happen and believing God is all-powerful means He could stop them. Like a COVID-19 death or a miscarriage or your friend who didn’t want a divorce, but got one. Maybe you were born to parents who weren’t whole enough to show you love and you can’t understand why God couldn’t have plopped you down in a different family.
We exist in a world where God does miracles sometimes and sometimes doesn’t. Sometimes He dams the river and tells sin it can’t go farther and other times it flows over us. We may get to the peace the Bible promises eventually, but first there’s anger.
Sometimes He dams the river and tells sin it can’t go farther and other times it flows over us.
We know anger is part of the grief process and grief is the way to heal, but may not think we’re grieving because nobody died. Grief is actually how humans process any painful lack: lack of safety, lack of attention, or lack of basics like food. We’ve all done without something and on some level we’re mad about it (unless we’ve already felt the feeling and experienced healing). So what do we do? We can deny it or express it.
Jesus said the truth will set us free and the honest thing here is to express anger. God knows about our anger and understands it. So why wouldn’t we tell Him? Somewhere, we get the impression that unfaltering trust in God means we won’t feel this way, but Job, an example of faithfulness, poured out his unfiltered feelings of anger at God. Out loud. And in the end, God said Job didn’t speak wrongly about Him.
Job was right to tell God how he felt. His words are written in our Bibles so we know the path of faith includes flares of anger. Our healing depends on us going to God with honesty.
