Unhappiness Toward God

Last Wednesday something quiet and amazing happened. I simultaneously realized, confessed, and marveled at my anger at the Holy Spirit.

Yes, I was upset about a prophesy I’ve been living under for about three years. It was so bad that I hadn’t told many people that the prophesy even existed. Whenever I did there was a deep pain, anger, I would be on the verge of tears. I didn’t know why.

And then while talking myself through an imaginary scenario, this happens all the time, I said to the other person, who wasn’t really there, “I’m angry at the Holy Spirit about X.” This caught me off guard. I’ve never expressed anger at the Holy Spirit before. I stopped the scenario and had to sit with this realization. 

Twenty-two years of walking this path and I don’t know how to be unhappy with God. I mean, it's kind of a crisis, right? Lovers can be angry with each other and recover and be better to each other for it. But I, I never knew I could be angry at God. Ok, intellectually I did know but I thought I wasn't when obviously I was. And God is one of my oldest relationships. If in twenty-two years I was never angry at, say, my brother wouldn't that be weird?

Maybe this unacknowledged anger is why I’ve been frustrated at every turn. Why I’ve fought so hard against good things. Why I’ve tried to control what people know. After this realization I found myself happily telling people that I am an artist, though I’ve fought that too.

Unhappiness toward God is actually common, I think. See there’s some part of us that tells us we’re the only one thinking this way or feeling these things when the reality, like, 98% of the time, is that someone else, usually many someone elses, has felt the same. But what I wonder about right now is the message, that I unknowingly carried, that said I shouldn’t be angry at him. Why not? I don’t think anger is a sign of disrespect.

God does and says plenty of things I don’t like, naturally I would be upset. He made me to get upset. Inside of anger I shouldn’t sin* but this acknowledges I will be angry. The source of my anger could be a flaw in my vision, or it could be a deep thing happening in me, or it could be injustice. I think injustice is the main and legitimate external source of anger. But honestly anger is usually something rooted in me. My own flaws, what’s wrong in me, reacting, just blindly reacting.

I have a lot of anger.

*Eph4:26