A question posted on another site by a youth group:
"We were talking about the Psalms and it was kind of surprising to find out that the Psalms weren't all about kissing up to God trying to get on God's good side."
And the question that came out of our conversation was "Is it wrong to be angry at God? Do we have to always praise God, or can we really tell God how mad we are at Him when things go wrong or when bad things happen?"
Is it wrong to be angry at God? Which is slightly different from telling God you are angry at Him.
One of the reasons I love the psalms is they allow me to give expression to things that I sometimes just can't find my own words for. Perhaps one can safely say that it is "wrong" to be angry at God, but I would have to add that it is never wrong to be honest with God. I am most open about who I am with those I trust. With those whom I believe love me. And it is a measure of the quality of friendship that one can be honest. So expressing to God our honest feelings, be they joy and contentment or fear and anger, is part of our trust in God. It is part of growing in the security of God's love for us. And the psalms help us express such a wide range of experiences, including anger and frustration.
But let me tell you a story...
When we first heard the news that Sarah Joy, our second daughter, was suffering from congestive heart failure in the womb and might not live, I turned to the psalms. We were told that it was likely that she had some genetic defect (later determined to be Down Syndrome) and that there were major complications with the development of her heart. She was suffering before she was born, and we were at that time unsure if she would live at all. What can I tell you?
I knew that I needed someone else to help me speak what was inside - the sadness, the mourning, the sense of complete helplessness and complete love. And that where the psalms become a gift from God to us. I did not read the psalms. I prayed them. And that is where we find the treasure of the psalms. For in the act of taking up the prayers of ones who went before me, I found myself praying the common prayers of humanity - of all God's people through the ages. It is something akin to being surrounded by "so great a cloud of witnesses" - these are the prayers of the communion of the saints...
Incline your ear , O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy...
In the day of my trouble I call on you, for you will answer me...
Yes, the psalms (as great songs do) help give voice to our lives, including the anger and the loss. But I must also confess that the psalm which brought me greatest relief was not, in the end, a lament. It was a psalm of praise. And In the middle of the night, kicking through the debris of my heart, I found relief in praise, and in declaring back to God the greatness of the One Who Is.
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honour.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!Psalm 8
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