Are You Mad At God?
I’ve got to believe at some point in your life, you’ve raised your fist and shouted out in anger at God. Most of us have done it.
Maybe your parent died, or you had a friend get seriously sick, or even killed. Maybe you have cancer, or some kind of handicap. These and other serious issues enter our lives, making it easy to target God for our pain.
Someone described anger this way: Anger is a human emotional response to situations that are either out of our control or out of our ability to understand, or both.
Have you ever wondered why we get so angry at God? That’s what I want to talk about, because I can assure you that while God allows us to cry out to Him, He doesn’t want us stuck in rage towards Him.
What are some of the reasons why we get mad at God?
The main reason we get so upset with God is that we think He owes us something. This usually happens in two ways:
1) We don’t get something we want.
Have you ever really wanted a relationship with that perfect girl or guy? Or you really wanted that job you knew for certain would be perfect for you? When these things didn’t work out, you no doubt found yourself hurt and disappointed. Our first impulse is almost always to blame God.
Daphne wrote: When we get mad at God it is really like a 2-year-old throwing a fit because Mommy or Daddy won’t let them stick their finger in the light socket. The 2-year-old can only see what he/she wants, the parent sees the bigger picture, and the danger. When we are mad at God we show our immaturity, ignorance, and our shortsightedness.
2) We get something we DON’T expect.
When something bad happens to someone we love, or to us, or someone gets really sick, or even dies we wonder why these things have to happen. We think of God as a big genie in the sky who should only give us good things and prevent the bad.
I received a comment from someone who said: Some people wonder why their lives end up being a certain way, and they blame God for it, because if God really cared for them, then He wouldn’t let them suffer.
We think, “If God is so loving, why am I in so much pain? Is He punishing me for no reason by allowing horrible things to happen to me, or the people I love, or even the world?”
We think God owes us something.
Both of these situations can make a person feel like God doesn’t care about us. After all the prayers we’ve prayed, God still didn’t heal your brother’s cancer, or get you the job you wanted.
Joe wrote: I have to admit that I am angry at God. The more I have prayed for help and guidance, the more I get nothing. He is ignoring me. It’s His right to do with me what He will, but I am frustrated because I have done what I think I am supposed to do and yet no response, no help.
We get angry when we think God owes us something. When in fact, God owes us nothing.
A couple of other reasons:
- We get angry with God when we don’t know all the facts. It’s so easy to think we know everything, but we can only see a very small part of the picture.
- We get angry at God when we see others claim to know Him, and then act like hypocrites. It’s easy to blame God for the faults of others.
These are just a few reasons why people get angry with God. Of course, there are many more.
How to get over being mad at God – Know what you can expect from Him.
If we think God is going to be our genie in a bottle, and make everything good in our lives, we’re going to be mad at God when something bad happens. Having faith in God is not insurance against hardships.
In the Bible, Jesus says- “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
So what can we expect from God?
- His Peace – If we trust in Him and believe in Him we will have peace even in the hard times. Do you want to know how to find this peace? Begin Your Journey To Peace with this great resource from Peace With God.
- God Wins in the End – This world is full of sin, hate and death and that comes from the enemy, Satan, not from God. However, for all those who believe in Jesus, there is glorious, eternal life in heaven.
- His Comfort – He promises to be near those who are hurting. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)
- His love – He promises His love for us. “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:16) He loves your heart and is with you in the midst of whatever your circumstances.
- Life with greater meaning and significance – If we got everything we thought we wanted, we’d be spoiled and selfish. God is a wise father who knows what we need to become the best men and women we can be.
What can you do when you are mad at God?
1) Tell him how you feel.
The best thing you can do is tell God what you’re angry about. He wants to hear from you about what you’re thinking and feeling. Tell God honestly where you are at. God knows what’s going on inside of you, but He wants to you be able to come to Him with honesty and openness.
2) Place the blame for evil on Satan, not on God.
God is good and Holy and perfect and loving. He is the opposite of evil. You may be mad at God because he didn’t prevent the bad from happening to you, but he is not to blame for the bad thing, Satan is. Jesus says in the Bible “The thief’s purpose is to steal, kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” (John 10:10)
3) Pray for courage, strength and peace to make it through the day.
Betsy wrote: I find it easiest to leave everything in God’s hands and pray that he will care for me and do what’s BEST for me, not what I want, but what is best. It’s very hard, and I have trouble with that at times, but that is my overall goal.
4) Trust that God will use a hardship for something beyond what you can see.
So can God use for everything we go through for a greater purpose? I believe He can. Ask God for understanding to see the bigger picture. Over time, you may see more clearly how God used your trial for good.
Jill wrote honestly: I feel like I have a daily tug of war with God. I know everything happens for a reason, but when you’re lonely, broke, bored, and feel helpless, it is really hard to say, okay God, I know you’re doing this for a reason.
Betsy echoed Jill’s thoughts: After many trials, I learned that it is best to accept what God has done and believe that it is for my good, whether I like it or not.
Believing He does have a reason for everything we go through helps us to trust that something bigger is going on here, even more than we can probably understand. But I’m not God, He is. And I’m just going to trust that He knows what’s going on with me.
5) Get involved in other people’s lives.
A lot of our anger and frustration in life comes from thinking about ourselves too much – we think about the way things are and how different they are from how we wish they’d be.
Yevgenia wrote: One of the best things I have learned while going through this is God won’t put you through something unless he knows you will be able to overcome it. Another way I have used these things in a positive way is by using my experiences to help others who are going through similar things in their lives.
The best way to find joy and peace from the hardships of life is to get involved in other people’s lives. Take an interest in other people and their circumstances. Share in their joy and their pain.
6) Decide to have a relationship with God.
The Bible says the only way to know God is by knowing His son, Jesus. Jesus was basically God with skin-on and gave us a way to know who He is, His love, and how to be in a relationship with Him.
The Bible says the only way to know God is by knowing His son, Jesus. #madatGod Click To TweetLucas wrote: Sometimes only God will know why He has allowed a trial and sometimes He will reveal its purpose to us. Sometimes it’s because He is preparing us for a greater thing. Sometimes it is to show to us how little we truly love Him, and to allow us to change. Trials give us an opportunity to build our faith in a way nothing else can.
How have you dealt with your own personal anger toward God? I’d love to hear from you. Please let me know how you got over being upset with God.
It’s hard to have faith when life is hard, but God understands your pain. For more help read this blog
Your Friend,
For more on reconciling the goodness of God and bad things in the world read these blogs from organizations we partner with:
Where is God in the midst of tragedy?
How Can God Allow So Much Evil and Suffering?
Thank you for this article, it helped a lot!
I’m to the point that no matter I do for God, all I get back is a very short end of a stick; I’m to the point that if a relationship with God requires being #$^&@*& at every chance; then God can keep his “love”, I don’t want it.
My children have been abused by their father for the past 10 years and continue to be abused. My son was raped at his fathers house. Their father was founded on medical neglect by not giving my son his seizure meds. I have been to court for the past 10 years and I can not get the court to understand what’s going on over there. Yet, the courts allow their father to have primary custody. It sickens me. My children hate being at their fathers house and plead that don’t have to go back when I get my weekends visits. I have exhausted all my resources to save my children, but everything fails. I tried letting it all go and that when my son got raped. My children do not deserve this. They need a way out. I have prayed for 10 years and continue to, but nothing changes for my children. Even my oldest son who turned 18 in Dec. last year, moved out of his fathers house right away and lives with me now. He had to endure 10 years of abuse from his father and now he is struggling to be who he needs to be. I don’t know what else to do. I cry every night hoping my children are safe.
For me it starts at the beginning. I was brought into this world by a Romany gypsy father who was a womaniser and who refused to sign my birth certificate and take responsibility for me being his son, and a birth mother who was immature and selfish and gave me away for adoption. I was adopted by a loving couple who knew love and stability.. but little else. Low achievers, anger issues and stubbornness were among some of the wonderful other attributes that I got from my adoptive parents which added into my DNA mix of bad blood from my birth parents.
In a nutshell this led to me now at 45 years old having had a life of turmoil, very few lasting friendships, every attempt at a relationship with a member of the opposite sex destroyed and a work history of numerous jobs in numerous areas fail and the common denominator of me being although likeable, a right pain in the ass to be around.
Quite frankly I wish I had not been born.
After an 18-month failed marriage in America to a beautiful looking prosperity gospel Texan Christian girl, she abandoned me so after hanging on for a few months until the money ran out, I returned to England to find against my every wish that she planned to divorced me.
I had believed through sequence of amazing coincidences weeks earlier that God had said not to worry that it wasn’t over until he threw the towel in. She went ahead and divorced anyway in my absence.
9 years of depression later, after gaining about 150lb in weight to overeating and having had no social life.. God was gracious enough to give me a trailer to live in which was 30 years old. I was actually genuinely grateful at the time because it was just something ‘from God’ and I hadn’t heard very much from him for years.
However it was very small and after 4 years of being there and begging and pleading and crying out to God in anger and frustration for him to give me a house – somewhere bigger to live, he was gracious enough to prompt some Christians to give me the deposit for a house. The budget was small but I was able to find something which I needed to move into quickly… it was the only one quickly available … I needed to move fast due to my trailer beginning to fail badly.
The house I moved into which I’m in now I did see was very small all but at least it was a house and the deposit paid for.
However 6 months down the line again I find myself asking the same questions:
1. You expect us God to worship you at churches and sing hymns about how great you are and how good you are to us… We are told at these churches that you have an amazing plan for our lives yet for some their lives end violently in murder in the extreme or just drag on aimlessly through a life of insignificance. I know we all can’t be Billy Graham’s, but you haven’t even show me any direction or vision or purpose – yet – you have let the woman who divorced me go off and marry some other Christian guy who presumably is better than me and they’re now enjoying a wonderful life together praising your name… Is that what I should do… just slap a smile on sing to you all the words you want to hear to get what I want???
2. Why can’t you just surprise me.. just ONCE … and actually give me an answer to prayer which I generally enjoy and want and is genuinely more than what I could imagine?? You tell me I’m your precious child yet I wouldn’t treat my CAT the way you have treated me or at least have allowed others to treat me..!!???
I find that I get very angry and accuse God of being a sadistic £&+/#@…. Because he refuses to take responsibility for the person he’s birthed me as into being, and sits back and just allows my life to aimlessly drag on with me having a constant struggle in various areas getting nowhere whilst I look on and see others including ex-girlfriend’s ex-wife progressing wonderfully.
Yes, I’m angry at God. I wish I wasn’t but I’m too honest to pretend that I’m not.
Christian, You have gone through a great deal in your life for a long time. Thank you for being open and honest about how you feel. Please know that you are worthy and you matter. The enemy would love nothing better than for you to continue to feel this way about yourself and God. No matter how you feel about God. He still loves you and believes in you. You matter to Him. It may feel like he has abandoned you, but he is still there waiting for you to understand how important you are to him. Getting angry at God is normal.
We think you would benefit from having an email mentor that you can talk to for as long as you like about what you are going through. To sign up for an email mentor go to: https://www.thehopeline.com/emailmentors/
If you feel like you have no one to turn to right now, don’t despair or give up. Talk to a HopeCoach at, https://www.thehopeline.com/gethelp/, whenever you need a listening ear. We can help you find greater hope and encouragement during this difficult time. We are here for you, and we want you to know there is always hope.
I totally feel this way ! I wanna make a decision to live like the cruel world but I can’t , it is not in me , but God is also not answering any of my prayers . I am just tired ..
I asked Jesus for forgiveness a long time ago. However, is it normal for a Christian at times to say to god, “I don’t trust you.” I don’t know anybody yet that has the coronavirus knock on wood. Hopefully I don’t get it. However, I have been looking at the number of new cases every day in the United States (which you know of course has been having it the worst.) I prayed that a few Saturdays ago, the 34,000 new cases the US had was going to be the worst amount of new cases in a day. It looked for a few weeks that there weren’t going to be any days that topped that, but only close to that. However, I saw unfortunately today that the new coronavirus cases for the US was 38,000. When I saw that I just got too angry at God. He is not giving me what I want. I am pouting like a little 4 year old and punching my forehead pretending the forehead is Gods forehead because that is how mad I am. He didn’t answer this prayer the way I wanted it to. Some people will say maybe he will answer this prayer the way you want it to but it is within Gods timing. Gods timing is not always your timing. However, I really hope it doesn’t take any more than a few months for things to improve, but I am concerned that it might unfortunately take longer than that. If looking at these numbers makes me too angry, then maybe I should avoid looking at those numbers for a few days. But I can’t help but avoid the temptation from looking at those numbers because that is how much I want those numbers to go down. When I looked at those numbers today was when I said to God finally, “I asked for forgiveness of my sins a long time ago, but right now I just don’t trust you. I am just too scared. I don’t believe you always take care of us because you didn’t stop this.” It worries me that states want to reopen in May even though honestly we are not getting any better. I am thinking, “God, we have already been getting our butts kicked badly enough with this virus. Can you let up on this virus and help us finally flatten the curve by May. Can you show our country at least a little bit more mercy than this.” We sadly aren’t coming even close to this flattening the curve right now. My former roommate is asking if I believe it is God that caused all of this. I don’t believe God wants suffering and evil. However, there are times where I believe Gods allows Satan to strike us dead. A perfect example is Job. God wanted to make a wager with Satan and prove him wrong. Satan said, “If you let bad things happen to a man of faith (like Job for example) he will curse you to your face.” God said, “Okay, strike Job down. I bet you Job will perservere and I will give him far more things.” I don’t know if God is trying to do the same to us. That is let an evil virus (like COVID-19) strike this earth and let Satan spread this virus to people rather than try to stop it soon. I pray God slows this virus soon. If I were God and were in control of everything, I either would have stopped this virus or if this virus would still have happened it would not have been any more contagious than SARS, MERS, or Ebola.