How Do We DO Anger At God?

Discussion Questions:

• What are some impressions you’ve gotten or things you’ve been taught about how Christians should handle anger towards God? 
  • Is it sin?
• What are common ways people approach being angry at God?
• Why might someone not allow themselves to feel/admit their anger at God?
• Have you ever been (or perhaps you are now) angry at God?
  • Think about why
  • How do/did you handle it?
• How should a person handle anger at God?

Related Scriptures:

• Psalm 77:1-9
  • “I cried out to God for help;
    I cried out to God to hear me.
    When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
    at night I stretched out untiring hands,
    and I would not be comforted.
    I remembered you, God, and I groaned;
    I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.
    You kept my eyes from closing;
    I was too troubled to speak.
    I thought about the former days,
    the years of long ago;
    I remembered my songs in the night.
    My heart meditated and my spirit asked:
    ‘Will the Lord reject forever?
    Will He never show his favor again?
    Has His unfailing love vanished forever?
    Has His promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful?
    Has He in anger withheld his compassion?'”
• Psalm 44:9-26
  • “But now you have rejected and humbled us;
    you no longer go out with our armies.
    You made us retreat before the enemy,
    and our adversaries have plundered us.
    You gave us up to be devoured like sheep
    and have scattered us among the nations.
    You sold your people for a pittance,
    gaining nothing from their sale.
    You have made us a reproach to our neighbors,
    the scorn and derision of those around us.
    You have made us a byword among the nations;
    the peoples shake their heads at us.
    I live in disgrace all day long,
    and my face is covered with shame
    at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me,
    Because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge.
    All this came upon us,
    though we had not forgotten you;
    we had not been false to your covenant.
    Our hearts had not turned back;
    our feet had not strayed from your path.
    But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals;
    you covered us over with deep darkness.
    If we had forgotten the name of our God
    or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
    would not God have discovered it,
    since He knows the secrets of the heart?
    Yet for your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
    Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep?
    Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.
    Why do you hide your face
    and forget our misery and oppression?
    We are brought down to the dust;
    our bodies cling to the ground.
    Rise up and help us;
    rescue us because of your unfailing love.”
• Ruth 1:13b, 19-21
  • “No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”
  • “So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, ‘can this be Naomi?’
    ‘Don’t call me Naomi,’ she told them. ‘Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.'”
  • *Note: Naomi means pleasant, Mara means Bitter
• The Book of Lamentations
  • https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lamentations+1&version=NIV

Further Discussion:

• So is it bad to be angry at God?
• Why might it sometimes even be good to experience anger at God?
• Is there anything you may not be letting yourself be angry at God about?