"GOD...EXPECTS US TO TAKE A STAND"

“If we had been holier people,” Templeton wrote, “we would have been angrier oftener.” Which translated means: Never endure what is not in itself essentially good, or designed to make everybody’s world a better place, or, in the end, really good for your own development. To violate any of those things is to violate the will of God for creation. God, scripture shows us, expects us to take a stand.

~Sr. Joan Chittister
"From the Heart"

Bro John Anthony posted in St. Cuthbert's Cottage

ANGRY AT GOD?

From CNN Health:

If you're angry at your doctor, your boss, your relative or your spouse, you can probably sit down and have a productive conversation about it. God, on the other hand, is probably not available to chat.

And yet people get angry at God all the time, especially about everyday disappointments, finds a new set of studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

It's not just religious folks, either. People unaffiliated with organized religion, atheists and agnostics also report anger toward God either in the past, or anger focused on a hypothetical image - that is, what they imagined God might be like - said lead study author Julie Exline, Case Western Reserve University psychologist.
....

It seems that more religious people are less likely to feel angry at God and more likely to see his intentions as well-meaning, Exline's research found.

And younger people tend to be angrier at God than older people, Exline said. She says some of the reasons she's seen people the angriest at God include rejection from preferred colleges and sports injuries preventing high schoolers from competing.

I find the results of the study intriguing and a bit amusing, in that agnostics and atheists express anger at a higher power, in whom they don't believe, for the disappointments of life. If a young person believes that God or some transcendent entity out there is responsible for tragedies and disappointments they experience, I'd guess that person is rather less likely to participate in organized religion.

"When people trust that God cares about them and has positive intentions toward them, even if they can’t understand what those intentions or meanings are, it tends to help to resolve anger," she said.

Granted, these studies aren't definitive; they are steps forward in this emerging field of inquiry and not the final word on the subject.
....

"What they need is a safe place to express their anger, to know that their anger has been heard and listened to," he said. (My emphasis)

Amen to the final words.

I don't know about you, but I've shaken my fist at God in anger numerous times. God can take it. I won't say that God and I chat, but I do get what appear to me to be responses from God through a variety of sources, other people, something I read in the Bible or elsewhere, or sometimes from thoughts that pop into my mind. I state emphatically that I don't hear the audible voice of God, except through other people. And sometimes I seem to get no answer at all. As I see it, a healthy relationship with God allows for us to express our anger, and we should not feel guilty about doing so.

The Psalmists express anger quite often.

Psalm 22 (The Psalm Jesus quoted as he hung upon the cross)

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.

Psalm 42

I say to God, my rock,
‘Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
because the enemy oppresses me?’
As with a deadly wound in my body,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
‘Where is your God?’

H/T to John Chilton at The Lead.