By Sheryl Manoharan
Angry … mad, painfully upset, venting in prayer … just angry … with God …
Have you ever had those moments, even those days? I have – and as I turned to Scripture, I found people in the Bible did too. Take Job for instance – his wealth is destroyed, his children are dead and his health is under attack. From chapter 3 onwards — until God arrives to answer him — Job rails against God, knowing that his words are impetuous (Job 6:3). He complains in the bitterness of his soul (Job 7:11) and demands answers from God.
Prophet Jeremiah turned the tables on God. In Jeremiah 20:7, he tells God: “O Lord, you deceived me, and I was deceived. You overpowered me and prevailed.” Until the end of the chapter, he pours out his complaints on an emotional rollercoaster, going from anger to weariness to praise, then revenge and faith and back again to misery. After years of faithfully proclaiming God’s message, Jeremiah is ready to give up.
Noami blamed God: “Call me Marah, because Almighty God has made my life bitter” (Ruth 1:20).
So I’m thinking: it’s OK to voice my anger to God. I can be real with God, just like the Psalmists did in Psalms 10 and 35. I can tell Him how disappointing it is when He’s slow to act, but He knows that I don’t love Him less. He’s not gonna strike me dead, like He didn’t Job or Jeremiah.
And just then, I stop: Yes, He’s my Maker, the one who created me with feelings – He can certainly handle the heat. But then is my anger simply about what happened — or didn’t happen — to me? Is our anger at God about what we expect God to do or give or say to us?
Job couldn’t understand his circumstances and wanted answers. Jeremiah thought his ministry would be successful by the standards of the world, though there is no indication that God had promised that. What if it is the control freak in us that wants to make sense of every situation, instead of being content to know the One who knows? What if it is about expecting God to answer us in exactly the way we want Him to? So even though we know that His ways are not our ways, we want what we want of God – sometimes, that leaves us angry. And since most of us have probably not been through what Job or Jeremiah went through, the anger is neither well directed nor helpful.
So as the apostle Paul admonishes in Ephesians 4:26: “In your anger, do not sin.” We do not allow our anger to turn away from God or recklessly throw words at Him. Taking a cue from Job who did not sin in what he said (Job 2:4), we pour out our heart to God and allow Him to shape our expectations of Him for us. And we continue to ask according to His will, just as He commanded.
And if ever what God gives to us isn’t what we planned for ourselves, we remember that God need never give us anything for He has given us Himself on the Cross. Will we then like Habbakkuk (3:17-18) be able to say:
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.
The writer lives, works and worships the Lord in Canada.
Read another column by the same writer: Why faith must be practiced
