“God, I have a right to be ticked! I have a right to some answers! You took away everything. My kids, my health, everything I loved. Why? What’s the point? What did I do to deserve this? I’ve had enough. Yes God, I’m angry with you!”
If you had been a personal friend of a man named Job who lived a few years ago and said these very things, you might have been tempted to agree with him. What happened to this man did seem to justify his angry attitude towards God. You can read the account of his rant in the Bible. It’s a long one, but the story has an interesting ending. God finally gives Job the interview he requested, but it is more of a God monologue. Yet, by the end, Job’s attitude has changed dramatically. No more demands. No more taunts. No more anger. What happened? Job got a close up, real life experience with God. Immediately, arrogance turned to humility, questions became irrelevant. It was enough just to know God.
Some years later there was another man named Jonah. He had similar experiences with God, but for some reason, his reaction was very different from Job’s. He stayed angry with God. When you read his story it’s hard to understand why he continued with that kind of thinking. But when we look at our own lives, all too often we also find slices of anger with God. We might shrug it off and say, “I’m just disappointed God didn’t work things out for me differently. That’s all. I’m not really mad at him.” But it’s there, a certain resentment, a sense of bitterness, a feeling of being shortchanged by the One we say loves us so much.
Usually, we study the lives of people in the Bible who got things right with God. In Jonah’s case, he didn’t. But we may well find we have more to learn from God’s working in this wayward man’s life than we care to admit.
If you have some hidden anger toward God tucked away in the corner of your heart, join us for one of our worship services. Anger doesn’t have to be forever, especially when it meets grace.
Worship service times: Saturday: 6:00 pm, Sunday: 9:00 am
& 10:30 am.
