Keeping Your Cool…When Your Anger Is Hot!: Practical Steps to Temper Fiery Emotions (23 page)

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Authors: June Hunt

BOOK: Keeping Your Cool…When Your Anger Is Hot!: Practical Steps to Temper Fiery Emotions
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11
FUMING AT THE FATHER
How Assumptions About God Result in Bitter Anger
“People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord”
(PROVERBS 19:3 NLT).

 

THE NEWSPAPER HEADLINE caught my eye: “Man ‘Angry at God’ Drives Minivan into Church Sanctuary.” The article began:
A man who said he was angry at God drove a minivan through a Catholic church in Rancho Cordova, California, late on Saturday night. Harold David Zequeda, 36, drove a silver Ford Windstar through St. John Vianney Church. Witnesses said the driver pulled onto the church’s front lawn and floored the gas pedal.
1
The van broke through a set of locked steel doors and then a second set of heavy wooden doors. The vehicle then collided with a 100-pound communion table, propelling it across the sanctuary. The car traveled 50 yards across the church, slamming into solid-oak pews and stopping just short of a statue of Jesus.
Amazingly, no one was injured in the incident.
Why would this man do something so extreme? Here’s a clue: Police were told that the driver dropped a photograph of several young children and was angry at God.
“It seemed like a cry for help,” said the church’s priest, Father Martin Moroney. “I just wish he had cried out in some other way.”
Zequeda was charged with vandalizing a house of worship—a felony—and driving with a suspended license. He was held on a million dollars bail.
We might shake our heads at this man’s behavior, but most of us can relate to his feelings. As I’ve spoken with thousands of people across the country, I’ve learned that many have felt anger toward God. Thankfully, most of us do not act on our feelings by smashing vehicles into churches. But our anger, if left unresolved, can be damaging in other ways.
When we feel hurt or victimized or unjustly treated, we naturally feel angry. We want to do something with those fiery feelings—we want to blame someone, we want recompense or revenge, and we want answers as to why this happened. If there is no one else to point fingers at, God serves as a convenient scapegoat, and we blame God for our anger
.
God’s Anger—a Mystery
Most of us would rather not think about God’s wrath. Imagining God as angry can create contradictions in our view of Him that we are hard pressed to resolve. This is especially true when we view anger only as an evil, savage emotion associated with slammed doors, shattered hearts, and splintered relationships. If anger is always a bad thing, how can we comprehend a loving God who gets angry?
The Bible teaches us that anger is every bit as much a part of God’s character as mercy and forgiveness.
Our resistance to the idea is understandable. Anyone who has a truly intimate relationship with God knows the joy of basking in the warm glow of His fatherly affection and the peace of sleeping securely in His fatherly protection.
He invites us, like children, to abandon our cares and climb onto His lap, where we may rest in His reassuring arms. There, by His infinite grace, we are surrounded with love. It’s hard to imagine that He is also a thundering, fiery God.
The Lord says to us,
“
I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3).
This is all true, every word. God’s love is everlasting; His faithfulness is never ending. The confusion arises when we stop there and believe that’s all there is to God’s nature. We could simply ignore the whole issue if it weren’t for Scripture passages that describe God’s anger at His people because of their stubborn and rebellious hearts:
• “Because they have forsaken me…my anger will burn against this place” (2 Kings 22:17).
• “When the LORD heard them, he was very angry…for they did not believe in God or trust in his deliverance” (Psalm 78:21-22).
There’s no getting around it: The Bible teaches us that anger is every bit as much a part of God’s character as mercy and forgiveness. At times, even Jesus got angry and didn’t hesitate to openly—even heatedly—express it. So, what does all this mean?
Is it possible that in trying to eradicate anger entirely we have unintentionally declared war on a natural emotion that can be extremely useful, and even godly? Absolutely—the answer is yes.
Of course our God gets angry—
righteously
angry. Would we really want it any other way? Can you imagine God as One who loves evil, abuse, rape, and incest? We want our God to
hate
evil as a motivation to further the cause of justice. Consider this thought-provoking quote from the Greek philosopher Aristotle:
It is easy to fly into a passion—anybody can do that. But to be angry with the right person and to the right extent and at the right time and with the right objective and in the right way—that is not easy, and it is not everyone who can do it.
2
Are You Angry at God?
Problems, pain, and perplexities—you can’t escape them. But do you blame God for the pain and heartache in your life? Have you pointed a condemning finger and pronounced judgment on Him because He has not stopped evil or suffering? Or because He has not stopped you from making bad decisions?
Periodically I am asked: “I’m angry at God for allowing bad people to cause so much pain. If God had the power to create the world, why doesn’t He stop evil in the world?”
An understandable question! The plain and simple truth is God allows evil because He allows people to exercise free will. He did not create us to be robots with no choice or to do only what the Creator programmed.
God created us to be free-agent human beings who have choice over what we think, say, and do. We can’t have it both ways—we can’t have God allowing us freedom yet preventing us from doing wrong—that’s not freedom.
If you have read the last book of the Bible, Revelation, you know God has appointed a time in the future when He will put an end to evil and suffering. The bad news is, until then, evil will always be in opposition to good and will seek to harm and destroy those who love God.
But the good news is God always turns evil around and uses it to accomplish His purposes. He did so in the life of Joseph, whose evil brothers sold him into slavery. Years later, when the frightened brothers came face-to-face with Joseph—now a prime minister of Egypt who had saved both the Egyptians and Hebrews from famine—he said,
“
Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:19-20).
An Old, Old Lesson
The Old Testament tells the familiar story of Job, one of the greatest tales of suffering ever recorded. The Lord highly honored Job before Satan, saying, “There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8).
Satan’s response was to challenge God concerning the faithfulness of His choice servant when under pressure—
intense
pressure. Satan’s supposition? If incredibly blessed and righteous Job were thrown into a fiery furnace of affliction, he would rise up and curse God. And so a supernatural showdown ensued.
God allowed Satan to take away Job’s wealth, family, and health—everything except his very life (and his wife). Understandably, Job felt unjustly singled out for catastrophe and cried out, “God has turned me over to evil men and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked. All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target” (Job 16:11-12).
How many of us have thought something similar?
Everything was going just fine, but then God caused all these terrible things to happen.
Job did not understand why God would allow such tragedy in his life.
“
Even today my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy in spite of my groaning. If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling! I would state my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments.
”
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Although our pain and suffering probably will never approach what Job endured, we echo his questions and share his feelings. When painful events befall us, we feel confused, abandoned, and aggrieved. Where is God in the midst of our pain? Doesn’t He care? Why doesn’t He stop this? Hasn’t He noticed our deep despair, the tear-stained slips in our anger bowl…
with His name on them?
Can We Share Our Angry Feelings with God?
You might be wondering if it’s okay to have pointed questions for God, or to feel anger toward Him. Many people I speak with preface their comments by saying, “I know I shouldn’t feel mad at God, but…” It is my belief that anger toward God can be an understandable response when pain penetrates our lives.
We are in a relationship with the Father, and in every honest, authentic relationship there will be conflicts, tension, and misunderstandings. We may, indeed, find ourselves “fuming at the Father.” God can handle our anger. He doesn’t turn a deaf ear to our “Why” questions, nor does He distance Himself from our heartache and pain.
Misconceptions and Misplaced Anger
However—and this is a
big
however—I also believe anger toward God is
misplaced anger
. That is true each and every time—no exceptions. The Bible tells us over and over that God is just, holy, loving, perfect, and compassionate. He
always
has our best interests in mind, He
always
wants what is good for us, and He
always
grieves along with us when we hurt. So when we feel anger toward God, it is because we have forgotten or misunderstood His character.
As I’ve listened to many struggling people tell me about their anger toward God, I’ve noticed their feelings typically revolve around a cluster of questions:
Why is God silent?
Why doesn’t He answer my prayer?
Why didn’t God intervene and help me?
Why do bad people get away with doing evil? Where’s the justice?
Why doesn’t God protect and bless believers more than unbelievers?
When people ask these questions, it’s because they feel neglected, slighted, or even cheated by God. They think He broke His part of the “bargain.”
“God, I’ll do my part, and You do Yours.”
That’s the way it works, they think, because the Bible is filled with promises for protection, prosperity, guidance, and deliverance. What happens, then, when God doesn’t
seem
to be there or doesn’t
appear
to be keeping His promises? They feel disappointed, deflated, disillusioned.
Our heart tells us one thing (God doesn’t care about me), while our mind says the opposite (God cares deeply about me). We know intellectually the Lord is faithful and just, but our emotions may lead us to believe He looks the other way when we experience hurt, injustice, fear, and frustration, and He simply leaves us to fend for ourselves.
It’s vital to realize that our anger toward God will not bring us any closer to finding peace, overcoming pain, or resolving problems. So, what can we do? Start with the following:
Pour Your Heart Out to Him
Denise called me on
Hope in the Night
, saying she was angry at God for the loss of her beloved 12-year-old daughter, Madeline, who had died of cancer the year before.
Although Denise had enjoyed a close walk with the Lord for years, after her daughter’s death she had to force herself, with every ounce of willpower, to attend church, read the Bible, and pray.
I asked if she had told the Lord why she was angry and shared her feelings with Him.
“Oh, no! I couldn’t do that! I ask for His strength and pray for the health of my other children, but that’s about it.”
“Why wouldn’t you share your true feelings with Him?”
“I guess I’ve always been taught to be respectful and reverent when talking with God,” she said. “He’s perfect and holy…and that’s how I’m supposed to be, too.”
This sincere woman got part of the equation right—we
are
to approach God with respect. But we are also encouraged to be completely open with Him, even when our sentiments are not all sweet and happy. God is an excellent listener, and He invites us to pour out our hearts to Him.
Like Denise, some people are hesitant, fearing lightning bolts from heaven if they speak openly—much less
angrily
—to God. We can, however, be direct without being disrespectful, blunt without being blasphemous. We can admit we have an anger bowl without hurling it toward heaven.
Above all, God desires a
relationship
with His children, and a genuine relationship is impossible without honest communication.

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