It’s a common temptation Christians face. Some disappointment has hit your life, or some tragedy. Life has thrown you a curve or taken a turn you know you don’t want. You don’t like the prospect of moving forward under these circumstances, or you find yourself constantly rehearsing something in the past. Anger begins to grow in your heart towards…well, towards God. Now Anger’s close, hard friend, Bitterness, is asking if he can come over. You know it’s not right to feel angry and bitter towards God. But what do you do?
Here’s some thoughts. One of the best things to remember in times like this is that the Lord calls us, invites us, to work these thing out with Him. These situations tempt us to make God into a “He” instead of “You.” We talk and think about Him in the third person instead of to Him in the second person. What we need in these times is extended periods of sitting with Him, before Him, in prayer, usually with His word open in front of us, thoughtfully praying through its message to us and waiting on Him to speak to us and work in us. In other words, we don’t run from God in these times, we run to Him. And we stay there, patiently resolved to let Him say and do whatever He wants with the situation. That’s at least one way to describe what the Bible calls “faith.”
While you’re there, with your Bible and your God, here’s an idea of what to read and pray over. Often when we start to get angry at God, it’s because as we think about the situation, we start to see God as some kind of force–an impersonal Mover, or a dictator who makes decisions about our lives but sits far away removed from us and our cares. But of course, this is not who God is at all. (If we think in this direction, we might realize we’re mad at a God of our own making…) So how do we bring ourselves back to spiritual clear-headedness? We go to the Man who the scriptures say most clearly reveals who God is. We go to Jesus. In Him, God has revealed who He is. And when we look at Jesus, when we watch Him heal and serve, when we hear Him speak, we can’t possibly think of God as impersonal or distant anymore. And that’s exactly the way God wants it, apparently. The coming of the Son of God into the world is meant to put to death once and for all the idea that God is anything other than who this Jesus shows Him to be–Loving Father, Serving Son, Comforting Spirit–God with us–the God who moved into our neighborhood and laid His life down to deal with all the wrongs we’ve perpetrated and all the things perpetrated against us. In other words, the pain that we’ve let start to breed bitterness in our hearts is exactly the pain Jesus Christ died to eradicate. This God didn’t just destroy sin, he died to make sure one day He could say: “I will wipe away every tear from every eye, and there shall be no more pain, for sorrow and sighing will flee away!”
To make this very pointed, try this biblical remedy for God-ward bitterness. Read through the passages that deal with the crucifixion: Psalm 22, Isaiah 52:13-53:12, Matthew 26-27, Mark 14:17-15:47, Luke 22-23, John 10:7-21, John 12:23-33, John 13-19, Philippians 2:5-11. Then ask yourself: Can I be mad at this man? Can I be bitter towards him? And turn in prayer then, right towards God, and talk to Him directly about this supreme demonstration of love He showed towards us on the cross. What would you like to say to this Jesus? “Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.” –Psalm 62:8