Angry With God
February 28, 2010
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
I can’t take it anymore. Have you ever felt that way? Perhaps some of you, like me, are feeling that way now. This is the worst time of year for me. A lot of you know that, like many people, I suffer from what is called Seasonal Affective Disorder, or S.A.D. Anybody with me, raise your hand…
I wish it were just sadness. I can handle being sad. Sadness seems passive and quiet, and I definitely get that way. But do you know what else happens? I get angry. Extremely angry. I snap at my family for no reason. I say and do things I immediately regret. My nerves this time of year seem to rise right up to just under the surface of my skin. Everything irritates me. I feel like I’m a ticking time-bomb every year from January through whenever the snow melts and we start to see the sun again most days. And this year, like every year, there are those teasers – those two and three day periods where the sun shines all day or parts of those days, and my spirits are lifted and I begin to feel better. But more important, the clouds in my mind and heart begin to disappear and I feel like I can breathe again. If you don’t have this thing (it’s caused by levels of vitamin D dropping drastically in some people when the sun disappears), it’s very, very difficult to describe it. Anyway, we get those teasers, and as much as I love those days of sunshine, they make it harder to deal with the subsequent cloudiness and even snowstorms that are still to come. Every day I check the weather and, when I see that more clouds are in store, I get angry – then I am angry that I am angry about something so stupid. Then I get angry that my response to being angry is to get angry.
Unfortunately this is nothing new. I’ve struggled with this most of my life, but it seems to be getting worse as I get older. When I was a kid I loved the cold weather and living in Michigan, and the snow, but I’ve come to despise all of that because I now associate all of it with a lack of sunshine and with feeling absolutely terrible for half of the winter season. Obviously I’ve never had a period or experienced menopause, but it makes me wonder if maybe it’s something like that – you can tell you’re going off the rails, but again and again you keep saying and doing stupid things that you regret, until eventually you are forced into almost complete silence, for fear of what you might say or do next. And you’re walking around in this body that, when you look in the mirror, it looks like you – only it’s not. You know it, and your family knows it – and you don’t exactly know where you’ve gone. But you get to where you don’t remember what you used to be like. Like I say, I don’t know if it’s anything like what women sometimes experience, but if so – I’m really, really sorry.
Speaking of women, the story is told of a businessman whose wife was experiencing depression. She began to mope around and be sad, lifeless—no light in her eyes—no spring in her step—joyless. It became so bad that the man made an appointment for her with a psychiatrist. On the appointed day, they went to the psychiatrist's office, sat down with him and began to talk. It was not long before the wise doctor realized what the problem was.
Without saying a word, he stood, walked over in front of the woman's chair, signaled her to stand, took her by the hands, looked at her in the eyes for a long time, then put his arms around her and gave her a big, warm hug. You could see the change come over the woman. Her face softened, her eyes lit up, she immediately relaxed. Her whole face glowed. Stepping back, the doctor said to the husband, "See that's all she needs."
The husband thought for a moment, then said, "Okay, I'll bring her in Tuesdays and Thursdays each week, but I play golf on the other afternoons.”
BTW, the hug thing definitely wouldn’t work for me. Anybody who tries to hug me to make me feel better runs a pretty high risk of getting their head cut off.
Like I said, I’ve struggled with this every year for a long time. But there’s something different about it this year. It’s not better. It’s not easier. It doesn’t make the depression less depressing, or the anger less angry. That’s not really the difference. The difference is that this year, for the first time, I realize I’m angry with God.
I don’t mean that I’m mad at God. What I mean is that whereas in previous years I would get depressed and upset and drop into this total wasteland, cutting myself off from my family, myself, and God – this year, for the first time, as I am angry, I am aware of being angry with God – that is to say, experiencing the emotion of anger and depression, but always having a sense that God is with me and that I am with him, that I am not alone, that even when I say and do things I am ashamed of, even when I have to run downstairs and sit in the office on the computer for hours at a time so I don’t say something I regret to anyone in my family, even then I am aware of God’s presence. And not only of his presence, but of his active care and concern and love for me. Sure I wish I were in a better place. But for the first time ever in my life, I have found myself this year able to experience myself as being angry with God, and depressed with God. And I can’t explain to you the difference that makes. I am not abandoned to my anger and frustration. Sure, I might have to lock myself away from Christy and the kids because they are human – they are gentle souls and I could easily slip and say something hurtful in a moment of irrational anger. So I protect them by getting away from them. The most loving thing I could do is save them from myself. God can handle anything. They can’t, and shouldn’t have to.
And so I retreat. I feel like a puppy, forced to wear the cone of shame – sequestered in my self-imposed exile. And in that place, I am reminded of these words:
Psalms 139:7-16 (NIV)
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
If I have to spend the day in the basement, apart from those I love, because I am being a jerk, you are there.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
I know for me this discovery is a beginning, and not an end. I have not arrived, or awakened into the full realization of the glory of God in the midst of my difficulties. I’m just starting, just learning some important lessons.
Anyone ever taken developmental psychology? I love developmental psychology, which focuses on how we grow emotionally and psychologically throughout our lives. In developmental psychology you learn about a couple of cool things called object permanence and the law of conservation. When you show a baby a toy, then put it behind your back, the baby actually thinks that the toy has ceased to exist. When you pop it out from behind your back and say, “Peek!” the baby believes that object has come back into existence. Did you know that? We actually have to learn the law of object permanence, which is that things which exist continue to exist even when they are out of our immediate view.
Why did I learn about object permanence when I was a toddler, but I’m just learning about God’s permanence now? Why have I lived so much of my life believing that when God slips from my view for a season, he is gone? I mean, I wouldn’t TELL you he’s gone, I just feel like it and act like it. I get into these places where God slips off the radar screen, and when he does that, as far as I’m concerned he’s out of my life. Sometimes God, like the sun, is obscured behind clouds. And that affects us, doesn’t it? I mean, I always know the sun is still shining. I know that if I were to get on a plane and take off in it, within two minutes we’d break through the clouds and the sun would be there, shining as brightly as ever. That never, ever changes. But its visibility to me changes frequently, and when it has been hidden from me for too long, the chemicals in my brain actually change and I plunge into sadness and fear and anger. Now those are chemical reactions and I’m limited in what I can do about that. But at least I don’t have to worry that the sun is GONE – that I will never see it again. On the darkest day, I can have reasonable faith that I will see it again and things will be better. I can count on it.
Psalms 139:11-12 (NIV)
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
In other words, no matter how far away God seems, even if God has slipped into obscurity behind the clouds that are in your life at this time, even if darkness has totally concealed the light, you can have reasonable faith that you will see God again and things will be better – that the simple fact that God has disappeared from view does not mean he has ceased to exist – the fact that the sun has slipped behind the clouds does not mean it has stopped shining. The sun never stops shining. Neither does the Son. That’s object permanence – learning to believe that things continue to exist even when we don’t see them.
Something else cool we learn from developmental psychology is the law of conservation. Conservation is the idea that something remains basically the same, even if it changes in shape or size. If you give a child a big piece of cake and a small piece of cake and ask which is cake-ier, he’ll tell you the big one is cake-ier. Or if you pour the same amount of water into a tall, thin glass and into a short, fat glass, the child will usually say there’s more water in the tall thin one simply because it is shaped differently. Or if you put two identically-sized pies in front of a child cut into different numbers of pieces and ask which one is bigger, the child will tell you the one with the most pieces is biggest, even though the one with the most pieces has much smaller pieces. These all relate to what is called conservation.
We learn while still very young that these are illusions. A small piece of cake is just as cakey as a large piece of cake. The glasses have the same amount of water. The pies are the same size.
And yet, despite our age and maturity, we struggle to learn this with God. We are told:
James 1:17 (NIV)
17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
Hebrews 13:8 (MSG)
8 For Jesus doesn't change—yesterday, today, tomorrow, he's always totally himself.
The fact is, it doesn’t matter how you happen to be experiencing God at any given point. Maybe you’re in a place where you are experiencing God as huge and mighty and in control and overwhelming in a good way, and the one from whom all blessings flow and all good things come. This experience itself IS NOT GOD. It is simply the way you are experiencing God at this particular time in your life. And it’s fun, right? We love those experiences. But we must not mistake them for God because if we do, then when they come to an end and we come off the mountain and go down into the inevitable valley, what will we think? That God is no longer with us. After all, if I experienced God this way before, and I’m not experiencing that anymore, God must not be with me anymore. The truth is that God has not changed, only your experience of God has changed. Learning that there’s the same amount of pie in the one with twenty pieces as in the one with ten allowed you to relax – to know that it’s all the same. Heck you even realize you’re better off with one piece of the pie cut in four pieces as you are with three pieces of the pie cut in sixteen pieces. You are mature now and able to understand this.
But many of us still think that when we are no longer experiencing God on the mountaintop, we’re no longer experiencing God. We want the cake that has more pieces; we want God in just this way. What we don’t realize is that we may stand to learn even more from God in the valley than we did from God on the mountaintop.
And I’m one of those people. Though my head has always been filled with knowledge and information about God, too often I lacked direct personal experience of God. I’m the poster boy for how knowledge of scripture and God does not necessarily produce deep connection with God. When the sun would disappear behind the clouds in the sky, the dark clouds would overtake me in my mind and heart and there I would feel completely alone. I’d have told you I knew God was there, but I wouldn’t have really sensed his presence with me.
Now if you know me at all, you know that I have spent a lot of time angry at God. Angry that this happened, angry that happened, angry that God allowed this or didn’t allow that, angry that God wasn’t available to me in this way and that way and every which way. But for the first time this winter, I have found myself not angry at God, but angry WITH him. Knowing that in the midst of this particular brand of darkness (pick your poison – there are an infinite number of brands, aren’t there), God is here.
Hebrews 13:5 (HCSB)
5,… I will never leave you or forsake you.
Genesis 31:3 (HCSB)
3 … I will be with you.”
Matthew 28:20 (AMP)
20 … behold, I am with you all the days (perpetually, uniformly, and on every occasion), to the [very] close and consummation of the age. Amen (so let it be).
Uniformly – that means always the same. God is always with us in the same way – it is not God that changes, it is our experience of him.
This is our greatest challenge and greatest opportunity, to live increasingly in the reality that whatever is happening to us, in us, because of us, and around us, God is with us – perpetually, uniformly, and on every occasion. That he does not change like shifting shadows.
I’m starting to make the transition in my life from being angry at God to being angry WITH him – allowing the knowledge and grace of his presence to still reach me there in those dark places – giving thanks to him all the while. And perhaps one day I will be so rooted in his grace and presence that the blotting out of the sun will not dampen my spirit and will not cause me to be angry. For we all live in the midst of one great truth: God is right here, right now. Would you pray with me.
Isaiah 7:14 (AMP)
14 Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: Behold, the young woman who is unmarried and a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel [God with us].
