It’s never fair to be angry with God
I recently said these words to a group of hundreds of people: “Never, never, is it ever right to be angry with God. “There was an air of disbelief on many faces. Many people have not accepted such words. It’s clear they didn’t agree with that statement.
- Obviously.
- Some understood me.
- Others seemed confused.
- Since then.
- I’ve been thinking a lot about those looks of perplexity.
- What assumptions made this statement difficult to accept?For me.
- Nothing could be so obvious.
- But why do others find it so confused?.
There are two hypotheses that can be common to many people today, two hypotheses that cause these people to stay away from my statement.
First, many assume that feelings are neither good nor bad; Therefore, to say that anger (whether against God or against anyone else) is wrong is to say that sneezing is not correct. Don’t you put the label on?It just happens to you. That’s how a lot of people think about feelings: they just happen to you. Therefore, they are neither moral nor immoral; So to say that it is never fair to be angry with God is to place the feeling of anger in a category to which it does not belong: moral category.
This kind of reflection on feelings is one of the reasons why there is so much superficiality in Christianity, we believe that only acts of reflection and will have moral relevance in this world, and we believe that feelings such as desire, joy, frustration and anger are involuntary feelings, penetrating our souls without moral relevance. We are not surprised that many people do not seek to transform into their feelings, but only in ‘elections’. This produces a shallow believer.
This assumption is contrary to the teaching of the Bible. In the Bible, many feelings are considered morally good or bad. What makes them good or bad is the way they relate to God. If God proves to be true and precious, feelings are If they suggest that God is evil, false, or foolish, those feelings are evil; for example, rejoicing in the Lord is not neutral, as recommended (Ps 37:4), so it is good. But rejoicing in injustice is a mistake (2 Thes. 2:12), because it means that sin is more desirable than God, and that is not true.
The same goes for anger: anger against sin is good (M. 3. 5), but anger directed against goodness is sin, so it is never fair to be angry with God. He is always and only good, even if his ways seem strange and painful to us. Anger directed at God means that it is evil, weak, cruel, and foolish. None of this is true and dishonorable. When Jonah and Job became angry with God, God rebuked Jonah (Jn 4:9), and Job repented in dust and ashes (Job 42:6).
The second hypothesis that can cause many people to stumble upon the claim that it is not fair to be angry with God is the assumption that God is actually doing things that give us reason to be angry with Him. But while God’s providence seems quite painful, we must believe that he is good and not be angry with him, which would amount to angering the surgeon who operates on us. Such anger would be correct if the surgeon was wrong and made a mistake. But God is never wrong.
I have learned over the years that if a person asks, “Is it fair to be angry with God?”, you may want to ask for something very different. You can say, “Is it fair to express anger against God?” These questions don’t mean the same thing and the answer isn’t always the same.
These kinds of questions often arise in times of loss and great suffering; sickness threatens to destroy all your dreams; death is carried by a precious son of the family; a completely unexpected divorce or abandonment shakes the foundations of your world; on these occasions, people can be very angry with God.
Is that correct? To answer this question, perhaps one can ask angry people: is it fair to always be angry with God, in other words, can a person feel angry with God for some reason and always be right?Was it right, for example, that Jonah should be angry about God’s mercy toward Nineveh?”God repented of the evil he had said he would do to them and did not. With that, jonah didn’t really like it and he got angry?(Jn 3. 10-4. 1). The answer is no. We must not be angry with God for any reason.
However, we ask: What acts of God would give us the right to be angry with Him and what acts would not give us that right?It’s hard to answer. The truth begins to close the angry heart.
How about we respond: things we don’t like?Are these acts of God hurting us?” I kill and live; I feel pain and pain; and there’s no one who can get someone out of my hand?(Deuteronomy 32. 39). Do these acts justify us in directing our wrath against God?Or is it His choice to allow the devil to hurt us or afflict us?The Lord said unto Satan, Behold, He [Job] is in your power, but life saves thee. So Satan came out of the Lord’s presence and struck Job with malignant tumors, from the plant of his foot to the crown?(Work 2. 6-7) Does God’s decision to allow Satan to sadden us and our children justify the anger we feel against him?
Or see the anger on the other side, what is anger?The common definition is: “An intense emotional state induced by discontent. “But there is ambiguity in this definition. Anger over something contains no outrage against a decision or an act. We just don’t like the results of this: the broken clutch, the grain of sand that stayed in our eyes or the rain during our picnic. But when we’re angry at a person, we feel unhappy with the choice they have. done or the attitude he’s practiced. Anger against a person always implies a strong disapproval. If you’re mad at me, you think I did something I shouldn’t have done.
That’s why it’s never right to God off, it’s always false to disapprove of God for what he does and allows. “Won’t the judge do justice all over the country?(Genesis 18,25). It is the arrogance of the finite”. and sinful creatures to disapprove of God for what He does and allows. We can mourn suffering. We can be angry at sin and Satan. But God is always right about what He does and allows. O Lord God, Almighty, are your judgments, right and righteousness?(Ap 16. 7).
Many of those who say it’s OKAY to be angry with God really mean that it’s okay to express his tyingness to God. When they hear me say it’s wrong to be angry with God, they think it means, “Feed your feelings and be hypocritical. “That’s not the meaning of my words. They mean it’s always wrong to disapprove of God in any of his judgments.
If we experience the sinful emotion of anger against God, what should we do?Should we add the sin of hypocrisy to the sin of anger?Non. Si we have that feeling, we must confess it to God, He knows you anyway. God sees our hearts. If anger against God is in our hearts, we can tell him that we are sad and ask Him to help us eliminate that anger by faith in his goodness and wisdom.
When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, He forever took away the wrath of God, in the name of all who believe in Him. God’s temperament to us is now of complete mercy, even when it is severe and disciplinary (Rom 8. 1). those who trust in Christ will be set apart from the terrible specter of God’s wrath. We can cry out in agony: “Oh my God, my God, where are you?”But soon we will also say, “In your hands, I give you back my spirit. “
I repeat: it is never right to be angry with God, but if you fall into this sin, do not increase it with hypocrisy, tell God the truth, and repent.
Excerpt from the book: Penetrado pela Palavra, by John Piper Copyright: © Editora FIEL 2009 The reader is authorized to disseminate and distribute this text, provided that it does not change its format, content and / or translation and report the credits of both authors, such as translation and copyright. If in doubt, contact Editora Fiel.