This morning I was listening to Bethany Bernard's song "Who Else". She sings:
Who else am I supposed to be angry at?
Who else, who?
Who else am I supposed to be angry at?
You're the One who calls the shots.
She's angry because her father died from cancer and it was a painful nightmare. She's angry at death and what happened to her dad. She's angry that she has to live life without him. And she's thrusting all that anger at God's face.
She goes on to sing:
I don't want a band-aid
It's so hard to even pray
I don't want You to go away
But I wish You would explain
She asks why God allowed so much pain and concludes that if He is the sovereign God she believes Him to be, then there's no one else to be angry at but Him - the one who allowed cancer and death to take away her dad.
As I was listening to these lyrics and thinking about the talk I'm supposed to give women tomorrow with a key takeaway I have from suffering, I just kept coming to this one truth: We can be angry with God because we don't have a Heavenly Father who is triggered by our anger.
Triggered by Tantrums
Like most kids, my son had temper tantrums when he was younger. Some were in public (which is humiliating and frustrating as a parent) and others happened in the privacy of our home. Regardless of where they happened, I always struggled to keep my cool and often didn't. Sometimes I had really good reasons for him not getting his way but it didn't matter. He couldn't understand my reasoning anyway. With all the anger that his little body could muster, he'd rage; saying hurtful words, trying to get away from me, or even sometimes trying to physically attack me. In those moments, it didn't matter to him that I was the mom who loved him and cared for him every day of his life. I was blocking him from something and had become the enemy.
As a mom, these tantrums triggered me and I far too often responded with my own, slightly more civilized form of a tantrum: anger and punishment. It's hard for us parents to receive criticism and ungratefulness from our kids. We have our own anger and burdens that have us on edge. We get mentally and emotionally maxed out. We get frustrated. We have limits to how much we can take.
We also have needs that we misdirect at our kids. We want to be loved, accepted, appreciated, and valued, and we thrust those needs on our kids - who are neither supposed to nor able to validate our sense of self - and we are let down by them every time. So when they respond with anger, hateful words, or a tantrum, it triggers us because they aren't meeting our needs or because their words hit a little too close to home. We can't take it and we lash back out at them.
A Father With No Triggers
But this isn't who God is. Our Heavenly Father has no triggers. Our Heavenly Father has no needs. He doesn't expect us to make Him okay. He doesn't use us to feel significant, respected, appreciated, loved, fulfilled, valued, or any of the other things that we look for in our kids and our parents looked for in us. God has all His needs met in Himself.
Bringing Our Anger to Him
So, what does that mean for grief and suffering? It means we can bring it all to Him. We can have a full blown temper tantrum in front of our Heavenly Father who loves us and is withholding things from us for reasons we don't understand. It does not trigger Him. He does not have limits. He does not respond in anger. He doesn't get flustered. He doesn't struggle to keep His cool. He's not frustrated, surprised, or embarrassed by who we are. There's no audience that He's performing for. Our behavior doesn't make Him feel insecure about His parenting.
If I have any takeaway from grief or suffering in my life, it would be that we can take all of our emotions to Him because He loves us, but He doesn't need us.
Most likely your family can't handle the full depth of your pain and anger. Your friends can't handle the weight either. Maybe not even your pastor or counselor can handle the full extent of what you are feeling and thinking. But God can.
Our emotions trigger people but they never trigger God. He is a safe person and a safe place. He stands firm and invites us to bring our pain to Him. When our anger is a raging storm, His presence and love is an unshakable mountain.
Underneath the Anger
I think back to the times my son had a tantrum and I was able to dig deep and, with God's help, not react with anger but instead stay calm while he got all the rage out of his little body and heart. When he finally exhausted himself, he would collapse into my arms and cry. He hadn't just been mad: his anger wasn't just anger. It was also grief, sorrow, hurt, or pain, and he had no other way to get it out.
It's the same for us. Our anger often masks the pain that's deep inside, and God knows it. When we bring our anger to Him and let it all out, He will meet us in that tender place underneath. He sees our sorrow, grief, and pain, and holds us as we cry in His arms.
That's who our Heavenly Father is.
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