Have you ever wondered how to stop being angry at God about your illness? In the case that you have type 1 diabetes, or another autoimmune disease, you likely did nothing to cause it. It literally happened to you, and now you’re having a difficult time dealing with it.
You may wonder why bad things happen to good people. How can a loving Father allow chronic illness? And how does the goodness of God line up with suffering?
You are not alone, friend. Many people have been asking these kinds of questions for a very long time. So let’s take a look today at five things we can do in hard times that will show us how to stop being angry at God.
How to Stop Being Angry at God
Anger itself isn’t wrong. And that’s a great place to start, especially when you have angry feelings. Anger can be a normal human response. God created us to experience and feel a range of emotions in this life. Our strong emotions can act like gauges for us. How we feel can be helpful in knowing how we should behave in a particular scenario.
Although anger is a negative emotion from negative thoughts that can lead to sin, that’s not always the case. There is a kind of anger that isn’t sinful — righteous anger. We don’t often think of anger as being righteous, but when it is directed at sin that goes against God or His Word or His Kingdom, it is. And that is the kind of anger that is acceptable to God.
Jesus Christ Himself displayed righteous anger in Matthew 21:12-13 when he flipped the tables of the temple when people were defiling the house of God.
But not all anger is righteous and acceptable to God.
FREE BIBLE READING PLAN
Scroll down to the bottom of this post to download your FREE Bible reading plan on How to Stop Being Angry at God About Your Illness.
Consequences of Unaddressed Anger
If left uncontrolled, anger can have its way in our minds, actions, and personal relationship with others. People can lose trust in us, we can make poor decisions based on emotion instead of facts, and we can experience emotional, mental, or spiritual downfall. Much of the time, unbridled anger can lead to long-term consequences.
So what can we do when we experience the first feelings of anger to avoid these major pitfalls, both in ourselves and against others?
5 Tips ON HOW TO STOP BEING ANGRY AT GOD
When these kinds of feelings of anger come up, what should we do? How can we stop being upset at ourselves or others? And how can we stop being frustrated with our circumstances? What about being mad over our illness? How can we stop being angry at God about it?
Here are five practical steps:
1. Realize You’re Angry with God
Of course, the first thing to do is simply to realize you’re angry at God. That may sound simple, but it might not be. You may think you’re frustrated with your circumstances or a situation you’re involved in. However, there is a good chance you may be mad at God for allowing it. Search your heart and understand the root of your feelings of anger.
The other thing we need to realize is that it’s ok to feel angry, frustrated, confused, and sad. What we should not do is allow those feelings to lead to behaviors that are sinful (Ephesians 4:26).
Part of living a Christian life is taking every thought captive to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). We are to evaluate our thoughts and what we read and what we hear, and line it up to God’s Word. This helps us determine the truth or the validity in what we are thinking. The same goes when we feel anger. And the Holy Spirit can help us determine how we should handle those emotions. But we first need to realize what’s going on.
2. Be Real with God
God knows how you feel. And good can come from simply being honest with God and telling Him how you feel. Being open and truthful with God is an important step in healing the feelings that are out of line with His will.
King David did this so beautifully in the book of Psalms. I immediately think of Psalm 13.
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
Psalm 13:1
How long will you hide your face from me?
David was very real and raw with God about his feelings. And he did it over and over again. Just open to the Psalms and start reading. Or you can download my 24-day reading plan of various Psalms that highlights God’s goodness. You’ll see it everywhere.
But like I mentioned before, God knows how we feel. And He can handle our emotions. Go to Him and be open and honest with Him.
3. Continue Praying
This may seem like the worst thing to you when you’re angry with God. But it’s probably the best thing you could do. What we need when dealing with our anger about hard things is God and the help of the Holy Spirit. Especially to break long-term anger, we are conceited to think we can truly fix it on our own. We need God’s help. So prayer is one of the best ways to reset our minds.
I love keeping a prayer journal myself. As I write, things come to mind that simply don’t occur to me when I’m thinking or speaking prayers. Pray for God’s presence, for His wisdom, and for God’s peace.
And when you just don’t know what to say when you pray, turn to scripture for your prayers. You can simply pray the Psalms. Many of them address hardship openly, yet still praise God.
A PRAYER FOR DIABETES: A DIFFERENT KIND OF HEALING
4. Praise Anyway
This is a hard one for me. When my heart is hurting or I’m angry, I don’t often want to praise God. In those moments, I’m typically focused more on my feelings, my circumstances, or my situation more than God. And that’s exactly what satan would want us to think. But we need to remember we are fighting a battle against evil in this world (Ephesians 6:12). We need to find a way to muster it up and praise anyway.
What I love about David’s Psalms is that they always come back to the goodness of God. To continue in Psalm 13, just four short verses after David has begged God about hiding His face and forgetting about him, he says this:
But I trust in your unfailing love;
Psalm 13:5-6
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me.
Turn on some worship music and sing along. Tune your heart to the goodness of God, His promises, and His faithfulness. We serve a holy God, and we could use that reminder.
Although we are dealing with a hard situation, God never changes (James 1:17). He is always good (Psalm 34:8). And that in itself is praiseworthy. Praise Him for the way God has already done good things in your life and in your family. Find something to praise Him for.
5. Read God’s Word
When we are feeling anger and despair, we need to cling to God. Reading God’s Word in general is always a good idea. The more we read, the more we remember, and the more we can recall when something applies to us directly. And this simple act of reading can help us cling to the Lord in the most crucial times.
Also, the more we read the more the Holy Spirit can be at work showing us new truths in words we have already read. This is what happened to me when I got the idea for this blog and my book on diabetes. It was a major turning point for me. I saw scripture (and my chronic illness) in an entirely new light that shifted my perspective forever. Scripture is healing.
Reading about people in the Bible can be healing as well. We can relate to others and learn from them in their situations. When I think of people in the bible who endured suffering from loss of health, I immediately think of Job.
Remember, our sanctification is a process. We sometimes skin our knees and go through hardship to be sanded and softened to look more and more like Jesus. God is in the business of working through struggles, and that is how we grow.
What can we learn About Job From his Story?
The terrible things that happened to Job, the prophet in the Old Testament book of the same name, were unfair. He did nothing to deserve the hand he was dealt. And his friends kept telling him that he was somehow to blame for it. He basically lost everything in life. His family members were gone, his livestock were dead, and even his friends turned against him. And this also included the loss of his health (that you and I can certainly relate to).
So what can we learn from reading his story in scripture?
- First, we can learn from Job’s faith. Does Job get angry and tell God he wishes he had died before he was ever born? Yes. He does that in chapter 3. But Job was a righteous man. In Job 2:10, we learn that even in all the loss he experienced, he did not sin. And in chapter 1, God stood up for Job and his character.
- Job seeks God in the middle of his mess. He has lost everything and everyone, and his life was looking and feeling nothing like what it used to. So he turned to God. He was open and honest and just plain raw with God in his message. His words can be found in Job 3.
- Job learns humility. Even though he did nothing to cause his distress and he doesn’t learn anything about why he suffered, Job accepted the answer he received from God and lived in peace.
What can we learn About God from The story of Job?
Let’s not overlook what we can learn about God from reading this book of the Bible as well.
- God lets Job be honest. After all Job says in his prayer to God in chapter 3, God doesn’t shun him or punish him further. He allows it. He hears Job’s words, and he answers like the good Father He is.
- Then, God answers Job. But He doesn’t answer Job’s direct questions, or even address Job’s current circumstance. Instead, God asks Job questions about His creation. He reminds Job of a big picture view, and just how infinite a God He is. He has so much power, and we don’t realize it when we’re looking inward instead of at Him. God’s ways are so much bigger and higher than ours.
- God’s perspective is infinitely wider than ours. He has wisdom we can never grasp because He understands everything. God’s plan in the bigger picture of creation is more than we could ever comprehend.
And so, with all this in mind, let’s read more about Job.
How to Stop Being Angry at God – A FREE Bible Reading Plan
Because I believe so whole-heartedly in reading scripture, I have crafted a 14-day Bible reading plan on the life of Job. We can relate so well to his loss of health especially, but he lost so much more than that. And we can learn from his faithfulness to God and how he handled the situation, regardless of what his friends suggested.
We won’t read the whole book in the reading plan, but the real meat of it. If you’d like to go back and read chapters we skipped over for a more whole experience, feel free. (It’s mostly conversation between Job and his friends back and forth.)
While these are sometimes difficult verses to read, I pray it will be an encouragement to you to watch the life and faith of job unfold in the darkest of times.
Get Your Free Bible Reading Plan
How to Stop Being Angry at God:
Remember God is in control
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is let go of control. (Or at least the control we think we have. We actually don’t control much at all in this fallen world.) But letting go of trying to control or manipulate a situation can be the most freeing thing you can do.
Reminding ourselves that God is love and He is just and sovereign — and He is in control — can do us a world of good.
And now for a prayer to end our time together:
O Lord, how I need Your goodness in my life. At times I struggle with feelings of anger and the destructive thoughts that come with them. I get angry that I have to deal with a chronic illness literally every day of my life. And I did nothing to deserve it. But You know that. And I know You will use this for good somehow. Although I can’t always see it, I know You are at work. I pray You would show me the good You are creating. Encourage me with the promise that You want good things for me and that You work everything together for the good of those who love You. Be near me and guide me each and every day. Thank you, God. Amen.
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