Angry at God

 

Do you ever feel like the whole world is against you? Like your entire life is crashing down around you? Do you ever get so frustrated with your situation that you just want to lash out and scream curses at the heavens?

If you've hung around me for any length of time, you've probably heard me bring up Psalm 77 (one of my favorite verses). In it, the Psalmist wonders if God has abandoned him, saying:

"You keep my eyelids from closing;
   I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
I consider the days of old,
   and remember the years of long ago.
I commune with my heart in the night;
   I meditate and search my spirit:
‘Will the Lord spurn for ever,
   and never again be favourable?
Has his steadfast love ceased for ever?
   Are his promises at an end for all time?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
   Has he in anger shut up his compassion?’"

- Psalm 77:4-9

When the world is dark and we cannot see the light, has God deserted us? Does he even care? We hear so much about a God who loves and provides, but there are times when I can't see it. How is God providing for us when we lose our jobs or our loved ones? How is God demonstrating love when we're pushed aside and told we're just not good enough? Were is God when bad things happen to good people?

Like the Psalmist, I question. I want desperately to believe that this is all part of some grand plan, but here in the depths of my life, I feel alone. I'm ashamed to say it, but it is usually when times are the hardest that I have the most trouble believing.

I get angry. I scream at God. I denounce God. I argue with God and try to get him to bend to my will. "If you really love me, you'll fix this mess!" I say. Even when I do things right, I don't always get what I feel I deserve in return. Like Jeremiah, I feel like I've been tricked. "You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me" (Jeremiah 20:7).

I get so angry with God and later, after I've gone for a long drive and calmed down a bit, I feel bad about it. But I don't have to apologize. I'm human and God understands that — after all, he made me this way. Yes, I have doubts. Yes, I sometimes get mad at God, but God can take it. And not only does God put up with my outbursts, he forgives me and never waivers in his love for me. I am blind, but God is determined to make me see.

God isn't a vending machine. We don't always get what we want and things don't always work out. And it's okay to be angry. I'm still bitter about the other times when I have felt abandoned by God. It doesn't feel fair and our lives often aren't. Bad things happen to us. We come up short. We lose. But, through it all, God is with us, even when we're sure he's not. It's okay to be angry with God, because no matter what we say or do, he doesn't give up on us. That's gotta be love.

"Your way was through the sea, your path, through the mighty waters; yet your footprints were unseen." - Psalm 77:19

The End is Nigh (But Don't Quit Your Job Yet)

I'm not making any plans to be Raptured on Saturday morning. Even if the Rapture was coming, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be going, anyway. But either way, I'm not expecting anything to be different when I wake up on May 21st.

There is a growing group of Christians who believe that the long-awaited end times are upon us. I simply don't buy it.

Human beings have a somewhat dark obsession with the end of the world. It fascinates us and for more than 2,000 years, people have been trying to predict when the Second Coming will occur — and every time, they have been wrong.

Over the centuries, various interpretations of Scripture have pointed to the Rapture and following tribulations as taking place in the year ~30 CE, ~60 CE, 365, 500, 900, 968, 992, 1000, 1033, 1147, 1284, 1496, 1533, 1669, 1689, 1736, 1832, 1843, 1844, 1881, 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, 1994, and 2000. Every date has come and gone and we're all still here. The odds of being able to pinpoint the exact date are slim-to-nil, if you even believe that such an event is coming in the first place.

I'm not sure I understand this fixation with the End, but I, for one, believe that Revelation is not the most important book in the Bible. I don't believe God wants us worrying about Judgment Day, but about our everyday choices and interactions.

As a Christian-in-progress, I have to ask myself: Would I live my life any differently if I knew that all of history was about to come to a close this week? Perhaps an even better question is: Would I live any differently if I knew that Judgment Day was five billion years away?

We shouldn't have to be scared into behaving ourselves. Second Coming or not, we should endeavor to live every day as Jesus would have lived it were he among us today. We can't control the future and we shouldn't live in fear of what it might bring. All we have is right now and we should do everything in our power to live Christlike lives in the here and now.

1 Thessalonians cautions us, saying, "you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." So, why should we get worked up about these predictions? God doesn't abide by our timelines. We would do well to be humble and remember that we are called to serve and love one another, not to sit around and waste our lives waiting for a day that probably isn't coming any time soon.

To me, that thought fills me with hope, because I still have a lot of work to do before I'm ready for that day.

Flooding Back

[The following is a stream of consciousness post on a deeply personal matter. I'll be back to my normal posts soon.]

I hadn't thought about my childhood in a long time before my sister posted a link on her Facebook page to the '90s ballad, "Truly Madly Deeply." It's a love song that has probably been played ad nauseum at many a high school prom, but to me, this song has a deeper meaning. "Truly Madly Deeply" came out around the same time that my parents separated. We always had the radio on at home and so, for me, this song became the soundtrack to the first rough time in my life.

At seven years old, my whole world changed. I packed up half of my belongings and moved with my mom and 2-year-old sister from our big, beautiful house in an upscale neighborhood to a small, roach-infested apartment in one of the poorer sections of North Las Vegas.

It was scary. I was old enough to understand what was going on, but not quite old enough to understand why. It was the why that terrified me for the longest time. Having your parents divorce when you're young has a way of forcing you to grow up a little faster, even when your mom takes superhuman steps to protect and shield you from it.

I had nearly forgotten the song, but when I clicked on the video and the first notes came trickling through my headphones, I started to cry. All the times we scraped by to the pay the rent, when my mom had to sell rollerblades in dirt lots out of the back of a moving van, and when we would go dumpster diving for furniture and appliances or to Dollar Day at Savers to buy all of our clothes — it all came flooding back to me on a wave of tears that had been repressed for a long time.

Maybe it's just a coincidence that my sister posted this so near to Mother's Day. Listening to this song reminds me of my mom's strength and all of the sacrifices she made for myself and my sister. She was so committed to doing what was best for us. She worked at conventions, handing out flyers, even though she had a college degree in Business Management, so that she could keep my sister out of daycare. If she suffered, she did so quietly and with such dignity that we would've never known.

I don't know for the life of me how she did it. How did we survive on a paltry $300 a month in child support from my father — who never gave any indication that he was concerned for our financial situation? How did my mother hold everything together in the face of such seemingly insurmountable odds? I'll probably never know the depths of her strength and wisdom.

Because of my mom's sacrifices over many years, I have had the opportunity to become the man I am today. I have been able to realize my potential by following her example of hard work and stubborn determination. Her love inspires me. Because of her, so many of those tough times are augmented with beautiful, happy memories.

I'm still a little hurt. I'm still a little angry at my father for putting my family through such hell and haven't spoken to him in almost 5 years. But when I look back, there isn't much I would change. My mother has been happily married to a wonderful, caring man for almost a decade now. I have two more little sisters, whom I love and couldn't imagine living without. I have learned lessons that a life of privilege and money could never have taught me. The person I am today has been shaped and molded by this experience and it is ultimately good.

I feel like I'm getting to place where I will soon be able to heal the scars and I will once and for all put the pain behind me and remember only the good times. I take comfort in loving family, in supportive friends, in a God who doesn't abandon us, and in the words of a love song which was an unlikely source of inspiration in times of darkness:

I will be strong,

I will be faithful,

'Cause I'm counting on 

a new beginning;

a reason for living;

a deeper meaning, yeah.

...

And when the stars are shining brightly in the velvet sky,

I'll make a wish,

send it to Heaven,

then make you want to cry. 

The tears of joy for all the pleasure and the certainty

that we're surrounded by the comfort and protection

of the highest powers,

in lonely hours;

the tears devour you...