What Should I Do If I’m Angry at God?

What should we do if we feel angry at God? Today, Michael Reeves reminds us to place our trust in our good and sovereign Lord when life seems out of our control.

NATHAN W. BINGHAM: Joining us this week on the Ask Ligonier podcast is Dr. Michael Reeves. He is the president and professor of theology at Union School of Theology. Dr. Reeves, what should we do if we’re angry at God?

DR. MICHAEL REEVES: You see many instances in Scripture of people who are angry with God, and I’d want to take anyone like that to two places in Scripture.

The first will be the Psalms. So, have a look through the Psalms and see the honesty of the psalmist. See how he doesn’t feel he needs to present some cleaned-up version of himself to the Lord. He’s actually honest, saying what’s on his heart to the Lord. So, if there is that anger, you can actually share it and just be honest and say, “Here’s where I’m at.”

But to get a solution to it—because that’s not a place you want to stay—I’d go to Habakkuk because in Habakkuk, it starts in the first four verses with Habakkuk basically being angry at God. And he’s angry at God because God doesn’t seem to be doing what Habakkuk knows He really ought to be doing—and that’s where the anger always comes. You’re angry at God because you think: “God’s abandoned me. He’s not looking after me like He’s promised to. He doesn’t care.” So you’re not angry because you don’t think He’s able; you are thinking, “He’s able and He can’t be bothered to help me”—something along those lines.

And that’s exactly what Habakkuk was going through. He knew—he was sure—God should be blessing Judah and making sure that Judah is righteous and keeping the law, and it’s not, and everything’s falling apart. And the Lord replies and says, “Look among the nations, and see, I am doing something in your day”—this is verse 5—“that you would not believe if you were told.” And it’s very emphatic: “Be astonished.”

What the Lord was doing in Habakkuk’s day was He was going to do something wonderful through something unthinkable. He was going to bring blessing to the whole world through the unthinkable option: Judah was going to be destroyed. But because Judah would be destroyed, the blessing of knowing the Lord would spread to all nations, and so, Habakkuk 2, the glory of the Lord would fill the earth.

And so, what Habakkuk learns is that the Lord works His wonders, and He does and will do wonderful things, and He will be absolutely loyal to what He’s always promised He will do. But He will often work through very strange and unthinkable ways. And what He requires of us is something different to what we normally want.

See, we want to understand: “Why Lord? Help me understand right now why it is I’m going through what I’m going through.” And the Lord to Habakkuk in Habakkuk 2 is very clear: “No, no, you won’t always understand. You just can’t wrap your head around everything I’m doing in the world and in your life.” Rather, Habakkuk 2:4: “The righteous will live not by understanding but by faith.”

The Lord does unthinkable, wonderful things. We cannot understand why He allows us to go through what we’re going through. But if you are angry at Him, it’s because you want to understand right now why He’s doing it. But the Lord says in Habakkuk, “The righteous will live by faith.”

And what Habakkuk learns from that lesson—and you see this in Habakkuk 3—is he begins to rejoice in the Lord. And he talks about the Lord’s coming in judgment in such positive, joyful terms. He begins to say, “Oh, the Lord comes from Teman with thousands, with bright lightning from heaven.” And he speaks with such joy at what would’ve been this terrible notion to him because he sees through that judgment, evil will be destroyed, and the glory of the Lord will fill the earth. And he’s ending chapter three with pure praise: “Though the vine doesn’t bud, though the crops all fail, I shall rejoice in the Lord my God.”

Habakkuk learns to walk by faith, to understand the Lord is faithful. He is good, but we won’t always understand His ways and therefore, rather than being angry because we want to understand, if you live by faith in how He’s revealed His character to be, then you can replace your anger for Habakkuk’s faithful joy, even when life is almost impossibly difficult.