Mad @ God

In the time it takes you to read this, dozens or children will draw their last breath, dying of starvation. As you reflect in the comfort of your own home on the questions this blog poses, others are going to be confronted by extreme violence – soldiers will be killed, innocent civilians will be blown up by a suicide bomber, women will be forcibly raped, children will be senselessly beaten. Perhaps you can relate to some of these scenarios – you have certainly been the victim of some element of humanity’s brokenness, right?

 

Fess up: are you mad @ God? When horrible things happen, it is common to look for an underlying cause – why? Oftentimes, we jump to another question before answering the first: who could have prevented this from happening? Especially when it comes to global issues such as starvation and extreme poverty, we wonder why God didn’t do something about it. Sometimes, we wonder that same thing about our personal tragedies – why did God allow my husband to beat me, or why did that drunk driver have to hit my brother’s car instead of a tree or something, or my child to be killed by a deranged lunatic? The questions and associated feelings are very real. While we might not always be bold enough o say it out loud, when we are in private or in the company of trusted friends, we just might admit that we are mad at God for, well, not being God like we think God should be at our moment of need.

 

Needless or adaptive? Anger was God’s idea in the first place. And, much like everything else God created in those early days, when God created anger, God pronounced it “good.” How we interact with our anger is the question – and the difference – between good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. There are basically two ways to deal with anger: needlessly or adaptively. We’ve all been guilty of needless responses to anger – that’s when we do something that really doesn’t help our situation, which means it is actually hurting our situation. There are many needless responses to anger: rage, withdrawal, emotionally abusive language – the list goes on and on. A better approach to our anger is an adaptive one – using anger as a gift to improve our lives and our relationships. Our anger is a built-in alarm system that alerts us to the fact that something bad has, is, or is about to happen: something is not right. Sometimes we don’t have time to respond adaptively to our anger, and we react instinctually. Like a rabbit reacting to a snake, sometimes our anger causes us to sprint in the opposite direction. But what if the snake wasn’t venomous? What if it was a stuffed animal? That’s a lot of wasted energy, and we’re suddenly a further away from health than we wanted to be. We don’t want o be angry like a bunny…

 

Hurting or fearful? Some anger experts suggest that anger is a reaction to one or two primary feelings: hurt or fear. Avoiding present or future pain (emotional or physical) is warded off by an angry response. Anger serves to protect us at that point.

 

The power of perspective… If we could learn to handle anger differently, our lives would be very different, and healthier. Gaining perspective is one of the most critical pieces in handling our anger adaptively. This is tough, because we have to unlearn our belief that what we see is correct, even when it might not be. An M&M, depending on which angle you’re viewing it, will display an M, or a W, or an E, or an angular 3. The difference is perspective. Reacting to our anger without it will likely cause needless pain. This is particularly relevant when it comes to being mad at God – our vision is almost always self-serving, limited in scope, and generally cannot take in all the viewing angles.

 

Can I really trust God to be good? This question was God’s response to Mack as he struggled with his anger toward God, blaming God for all the senseless acts in the world, and one tragedy that was very personal to him – the abduction, abuse, and murder of his little girl, Missy. We react with anger out of our pain toward God – our level of hurting sometimes overwhelms us. Or sometimes we are so afraid that if we really trust God, God will blow it, and then what will be left? Better to keep control of things to avoid more pain. But the longer we live, the more we realize that if we were in charge of everything, we’d be a big fat mess.

 

Working toward a healthier relationship. Going to the shack – the center or our pain – is similar to facing our anger. It’s tough. We haven’t faced it because we’ve accommodated it instead, and our accommodations have grown familiar and comfortable. Smoking is comfortable, and it kills people. Substance abuse is comfortable, but it kills people, too. Avoidance, denial, isolation – all get comfortable, and all kill us in their respective ways. What God is calling you to is a relationship built on trust. Trust in God’s ultimate goodness. Trust in God’s love for you and all people everywhere.

 

Unfortunately for us in the West, this isn’t fixed quickly, either. Relationships take time. Healing relationships takes time. Time to rebuild trust. May you take the time to discover that God is very, very good, in spite of your perspective.
 

May you begin to trust God more and more,

and (re)build your life on the foundation of the eternally good

more than the mortally wounded.

 

Think…

1. When you are angry, how do you typically react? Does your reaction vary depending on the context? If so, how? Why?
2. How is your response to anger sometimes needless? How is it sometimes adaptive? What gets in the way of your handling anger more adaptively?
3. Can you think of a time when your perspective limited your evaluation so much that when you saw the whole picture, your evaluation changed?
4. How does anger help relationships? How does anger help our relationship with God?
5. Is anger rooted in hurt or fear? What root causes are there for your anger toward God?
6. How does your level of trust in a relationship with God impact the potency of that relationship? What questions or issues need to be addressed for you in order that you might be able to trust God more fully?