David’s anger in Psalm 35 is anger with our God, supported by God. What I mean by that is David is inviting the Lord alongside his anger, to give to the Lord the responsibility for the vengeance and payback that David believes these enemies so desperately need.
This is different, in how I have entitled this Feed, as Anger WITH Our God. “WITH” is to indicate that God is the focus of our anger, not the accompaniment in our anger. Getting mad at God, that is something that exists. People who have prayed desperately for the ungiven miracle can lash out. Our neighbors who have been castigated and shamed by people-sometimes sinful and sometimes well meaning-who claim to speak in God’s Name can lash out at the Divine.
Psalm 35 does not really drift into that territory. If we think through the events that have led to Psalm 35, if we reflect on what might have been happening in the life of David to provoke such words of vengeance upon his enemies, his anger is seeking the Lord to be with him, to come alongside that anger. But what if God had another plan? Another way of dealing with things? A different outcome? Could David have gotten angry WITH God, anger directed at the Lord? Would he have been too ashamed to write a Psalm for that?
What is behind getting angry at God? I would give it the name ‘doubt’. God did not do what we prayed for-we doubt God’s power. God has been portrayed by his “faithful followers” as a mean, judgmental, being-we doubt God’s love. God has taken our loved one from us too soon-we doubt God’s mercy. For me, getting angry at God was like getting angry at my parents when I was growing up. I got angry, but to express it brought shame-“how could I?”-and retribution-especially since that anger was coupled with acting out. A healthy manner of expression, naming the emotion and sharing that, it was not in the way our family did things. That is neither good nor bad, it is just how it was.
Getting angry WITH God, at God, it falls in that same category. It is something that is not done. Because its God. And God is loving, which presupposes that anger at God is then unfair, unwarranted, and just plain sinful. Well, yes, yes, and yes. But, precisely because we are sinners, getting mad at God can ultimately be healthy for our souls. Wait, what? But anger is a matter of doubting God. This is true, but the problem is not that so much as it has been deemed an inappropriate form of doubt.
We saw doubt in David’s prayer in Psalm 42. Best he could manage was that he would see God’s grace again at sometime in the future, because in the moment, not so much. In times of extreme sadness and depression, doubt will enter in. Our faith is that God will see us through that time and we will again praise the Lord. Anger, taken to God, is our doubt of the Lord, taken to the Lord.
The popular perception of anger is probably expressed best by Yoda. He said “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda’s solution was “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.” So, don’t fear. It sounds like he is telling us not to love anything, because then it will have no value to us, nothing to provoke a fear of loss.
There are a couple of presuppositions of our faith that take us in a different direction. The first is that God is love. The second is that God is all-powerful. Fear can spring from doubt, doubt in our God’s love and power. Fear, anger, depression, sadness, all are reactions to doubt. Bringing it to the Lord opens the way to God’s healing power to overcome our doubt, our fear. It brings healing power to overcome our anger. Getting angry WITH our God, at our God, it is a starting point for prayer as surely as any other.
God’s answer may not be what we expect. It may not be what we want. But we are not going to know until we ask, even in anger.
Peace,
Pastor Peter
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