The psalms teach us how to grieve through loss and express emotions, but are we allowed to be angry at God? There are seasons we may experience deep frustration: a sabotaged career, a financial disaster, or maybe a wayward child. Sometimes an accident, disease, or abuse intrudes into the family, and there are no words left to describe our desperation. Debilitating pain can erode our confidence in a loving God, and it can be tempting to believe that if God even exists, He must not care, or He would have protected my loved one. Are we allowed to express our outrage at the Lord—you know, tell Him that He dropped the ball on this one—or is that a step down the path of rebellion and disrespect?
1. The right to protest.
Yes, you are allowed to express your grievances to God, candidly and emotionally. Our complaint does not end the suffering, but it expresses our soul’s cry for justice. Where is God? That was the question Elie Wiesel heard whispered behind him as the Jews of Auschwitz were forced to watch the soldiers hang an innocent little Jewish boy. Where is He? Where is God? protested one of the suffering prisoners.
The world can be filled with wickedness, and sometimes all we can do is add our objections through our tears. Wiesel, who survived Auschwitz, later observed, “I have the right to protest. I cannot protest without God, but I have the right to protest to Him.” The process of lamenting to God forces us to wrestle with God and work it out. Read Bring Your “Ugly” to God to learn a biblical pattern of lament in the psalms.
2. In your anger, do not sin.
Emotions indicate what’s in your heart. When you get a splinter in your finger, it hurts because something is in there. In the same way, anger is telling you something is below the surface. Your heart hurts because something valuable was lost. The Bible gives us helpful instructions for processing our emotions (even anger), not for ignoring them. “‘In your anger do not sin’: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold” (Ephesians 4:26–27). Anger is not forbidden. What’s forbidden is allowing it to turn into resentment or a sin-grudge. In the same way that we express our anger to other people in order to be reconciled to them, we must express anger to the Lord as well. “Do not hate a fellow…in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly…Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone” (Leviticus 19:17). The key is to express yourself to the Lord and not fester in resentment. Anger is not a sin, but mishandled anger may lead to a sin.
3. Emotions are real; they just aren’t always true.
Emotions are real, but sometimes they can mislead us. Have you ever been so hurt and angry at someone, only to discover it was a complete misunderstanding? Emotions only tell us how we feel; they aren’t necessarily telling us what is true. When Job lost his entire family and everything he owned, he directed his anger at God for the injustice. God had to remind Job that Job was completely unaware of the mysteries of what causes evil and who should be blamed. The proverb says that fools can bring ruin on themselves and still find ways to blame God (Proverbs 19:3). Their feelings are real, but they are raging against the wrong person. Work through your emotions, but be careful not to blame God for things you don’t fully understand.
4. Anger at God is misdirected.
Anger directed towards God is usually your heart communicating that you’ve lost something valuable. Maybe you feel vulnerable, abandoned, neglected, betrayed, or rejected. Anger towards God is just pain misdirected. You feel the pain of injustice, and it so quickly gets sandwiched together with God, you could have stopped this. We blame God for being a sort of security agent who didn’t stop evil from entering the room. God didn’t live up to your expectations, and we hold Him responsible for evil in our world. That’s backward. (For a similar conversation, read When God Doesn’t Heal.)
Maybe you’ve never thought of it that way, but you just need to see the situation from a different angle. Maybe God isn’t the source of evil. And maybe God didn’t desire evil to happen to you. And maybe God is going to redeem us from all injustice and evil in such an ultimate way that no one can accuse Him of injustice, even if He does allow it temporarily. The Apostle Paul seemed to think so! He was the guy who was stoned to death, shipwrecked, hated by his people—all for doing God’s work. He had the audacity to write, “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
5. Replace the lies about God with the truth.
When people falsely accuse another person’s character or conduct, it’s called slander. We can slander God’s name: “Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God” (Leviticus 19:12). We can slanderously accuse God by attributing evil to a good person. Our emotions can falsely accuse God. The Bible states clearly that God’s character is innocent and just. “The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love” (Psalm 33:5). He is not the author of evil. “God is love” (1 John 4:10), and is working towards eradicating evil in the world.
As you process your grief and your anger, you may need to tell the accusing voice inside of you that you refuse to believe lies about God. Remind yourself of the truth that the Bible reveals about God’s character. He is the source of love, truth, and healing, not the source of evil, injustice, and calamity. Psalm 22 begins with the cry of neglect, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me?” But it ends with the declaration of faith, “You who fear the Lord, praise him!...For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one” (22:23–24).
Conclusion
Some people seem to walk through loss and still grow closer to Jesus. Other people, feeling completely side-swiped and abandoned, lose their faith in the grief and anger. Don’t let the anger from loss or grief drive a wedge between you and your Comforter. Express your anger to the Lord, but remind yourself that He is not to blame; He is here to help you heal. Learn how to lament and receive comfort from the Lord. Even in the midst of your anger, God wants to bring you comfort. He wants to turn “why have you forsaken me,” into “he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one” (Psalm 22).
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