Yesterday while sitting in the library, my pent up anger bubbled up in my heart and spewed out my mouth to one of my friends. Halfway through the rant, the words I had been too ashamed to say out loud and too scared to even acknowledge slipped out unexpectedly.
"I'm just so angry with God, why is He allowing bad things to happen to amazing people?"
This all came out after a week filled with feeling helpless. I have sat with countless people while they cry, mourn or struggle to understand God’s plan. Within my own journey, I have been struggling with the call of patient that the Lord has placed on my heart.
So, I’m angry at God, even as I write this. I’m struggling to grasp why God can’t let me have a peek at His Divine Plan. I’m struggling to understand why the greatest people in my life are carrying some of the heaviest crosses. I'm struggling to understand why God can't let me save everyone.
And that’s where the problem is. I want to play God. I’m angry that God won’t let me do His job for Him because I feel like I could be doing it a lot better. Yeah, God, me. I, a poor miserable sinner with absolutely no foresight, could be doing so much better than you at this Savior thing.
Being a Christian is battling the sin of this world and trying to reconcile it with your relationship with your Creator. Sin tells me I should take control. Sin tells me that God doesn’t know what is best. Sin tells me that I should be single handedly saving the world.
After I spewing out the inner hardening of my heart I had been avoiding to acknowledge, my friend pulled out his Bible and read 1 Peter 4:12-13 to me:
“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”
In that moment, the Lord convicted me to the core. He promised in the Bible that a life of following Him would bring hard times. But I am called to REJOICE! The light, momentary afflictions that I’m watching my friends battle are preparing them for a weight of glory beyond all compare (2 Cor. 4:17). The helplessness that I feel is God nudging me to rely solely on Him for strength and salvation.
Then the Lord put a few more questions on my heart, questions that I am still battling: How can I be angry at the God who has my friends’ best interest in mind? How can I think of myself so highly that I believe I would have a better divine plan then the Lord, who knows everything? How can I be angry at the God who made me in His image and sent His son to save me from eternal damnation?
I’m not going to pretend that all of my feelings of anger or resentment have been relieved. I’m still battling with God about why I can’t have control of certain things and why I can’t fix the problems my friends are facing.
Then, I hear His voice whisper "relinquish the control to Me, I have plans to prosper you." And for a moment, a peace that transcends all understanding causes my heart to leap and the words “Your will be done,” spill out without even thinking.
God’s Blessings.
