We will
never really worship God until we learn to love Him. Loving God is impossible until we walk
through our rage against Him. I say this
as a person from whom others expect that I will have a lot of rage at God. Honestly, it has been quite some time since I
have experienced utter raged against God.
Not that you should be impressed.
It is embarrassing to admit the angry outbursts I expressed toward God
in my past that brought me to this point.
When I was in my early twenties, I could be outraged because I stubbed
my toe! After a long and fretful pattern
of rage, God meeting me in my anger, and my realization that God is always
right and I am always wrong, I have discovered the freedom in bypassing genuine
rage against God in my later years. I fully
understand the lonely and hopeless feeling when one is trapped in anger with
God. Our anger with God distances us
from His love, power and presence. Yet
there is no way to get through the wall other than to honestly admit our anger
and our need for Him to walk us to true worship.
My love for God
seems to have cemented as I walked through my inner rage towards Him. God welcomed my anger. He is big enough to handle my puny wrath no
matter how insurmountable it feels to me.
I know I’m not alone. I remember
a quote on the front of a brochure for a Christian conference I received
decades ago. I don’t remember the
conference; I did not attend. It was
just a flyer I was sent in the mail before email even existed. However, its cover so resonated with my
experience of God that I never forgot it and have quoted it on many occasions
as I have helped people connect more deeply to God. It went something like this. “’You ask me if I love God; sometimes I hate
Him.’ Those are strange words to hear from the lips of Martin Luther. Yet, he said them. The Reformation was not forged by a man who
was a hater of God. His anger was a
misunderstanding of God’s righteous character.”
I don’t know how anyone can realize their misunderstanding of God’s
righteous character unless they face the rage they feel about a God who permits
so much evil in the world. We have many
biblical examples of the rage that leads to worship. I am talking about in the life of Job, Joshua,
Elisha and more. Surprisingly the
apostles don’t give us similar examples.
Perhaps when you actually see God die before your very eyes, you embrace
your suffering more easily. After Peter
and John received their first flogging, their response was humble gratitude
that they were considered worthy to suffer in a similar way to that which Jesus
suffered. Acts 5:40-42 recounts their
first experience of persecution. They called the apostles in
and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus,
and let them go. The apostles left the
Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of
suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple
courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and
proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.
We don’t
all progress in our worship of God in spite of evil so rapidly. The understanding of God’s righteous
character was solidified in their hearts.
You can tell that by their response to their wounded state. I don’t know a safer path to true worship of
God than honest rage against Him. I
often have people write a letter of anger to God. I then ask them to let God speak back to them
and tell them to open His word and record what He says. Often, I don’t even have to help them see how
God answered the truest need of their heart through the Scripture they
read. At other times, I see God’s answer;
and they need my guidance to understand what He just spoke from His word to
their heart.
Every
single time I have ever been mad at God I have experienced worship. In the end I bow my knee and say that God is
good, and I thank Him for His love for me.
I am transformed by laying aside my corrupted thinking and seeing that
God alone is worthy of my worship and praise.
Copyright © 2018.
Deborah R. Newman.
teatimeforyoursoul.com All Rights
Reserved.
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