Praying When I am Angry with God

When I am angry with God, I get really honest, raw, clear with God about how I am feeling. In my prayers, I tell God how I feel and why. I express to God in no uncertain terms the ways I think God has let me down. I remember and rehearse to God the ways that God has helped and blessed others, and I wonder aloud: “Why do you, O Lord, choose not to help me?!?! It’s not fair.”

In those honest prayers, in my anger, in my hurt, in my wondering why God seems absent, I am joining my voice with the voices of the faithful who came before me. I am not the first one to be angry with God.

The Psalms contain similar gut honest prayers to God: 

• prayers to seek to hold God accountable, 
• prayers that are raw with pain, disappointment, grief, frustration, despair, 
• prayers that express the depth of human suffering to the divine heart. 

Two examples are below:

Psalm 13:1-3 (CEB)

How long will you forget me, Lord? Forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long will I be left to my own wits,
agony filling my heart? Daily?
How long will my enemy keep defeating me?
Look at me!
Answer me, Lord my God!

Psalm 77:6-9 (CEB)

I meditate with my heart at night;
I complain, and my spirit keeps searching:
“Will my Lord reject me forever?
Will he never be pleased again?
Has his faithful love come to a complete end?
Is his promise over for future generations?
Has God forgotten how to be gracious?
Has he angrily stopped up his compassion?”

Also see The Book of Lamentations and The Book of Job and the prophet Jeremiah.

I find all of these to be sources of encouragement for such an honest, raw prayer to God, even blaming God. Perhaps most profound is the prayer from Jesus’ own lips on the cross: 

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?!” Matthew 27:45-46

Jesus is quoting the pathos filled Psalm 22. Since Jesus can pray such a prayer, so can I. And I do.

What I find interesting is that my yelling out to God in my anger, grief, overwhelm, displeasure, etc.,  reveals that I believe God is big enough and God cares enough to hear my cry, and that God is able to respond and make things right, or at least, comfort me in my distress. Otherwise, I would just remain silent.

If Paul is right that “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” Romans 8:39, then God, in fullness of love, hears my anger and responds with love, whether I am ready to receive it or not.

So that why I keep praying, keep being raw and honest, and keep holding on to God with tenacity, saying, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” Mark 9:24