God can handle your anger.
I admire people who have a talent for praying and putting words to their thoughts as they express them to God, and I love hearing beautiful, eloquent prayers.
It can be tempting to exclusively pray these kinds of polished, “holy” prayers, but not every prayer is meant to be a poem.
We can find plenty of examples in the Bible of “unholy” prayers with raw, unfiltered, or even angry words directed to God.
And here’s the beauty of it all: God doesn’t mind. Time and again, God meets the “angry pray-er” in their emotions.
A perfect example is the prophet Jonah. For whatever reason, he is unhappy about God’s assignment for him to go to Nineveh and prophesy against the city (Jonah 1). When he finally obeys, God works powerfully through Jonah, and an entire city is saved! This is cause for celebration, you’d think… but not for Jonah.
He was so angry with God for not destroying Nineveh like He had threatened, that he said (and I’m paraphrasing) “I knew You’d pull a stunt like this! I knew You’d forgive them and that’s why I didn’t want to go in the first place!” (Jonah 4:2).
Jonah even goes as far as to say: “I’m so angry I wish I were dead” (Jonah 4:9 NIV).😲
But God isn’t fazed by Jonah's tantrum or his suicidal tendencies. In His great mercy, He asks him:
“Is it right for you to be angry?” […] “Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left?” – Jonah 4:4,11 NIV
God doesn’t rebuke or condemn Jonah for his emotions; he doesn’t forsake him for being unreasonable. But almost like a friend, God reasons with him.
It’s ok to be angry with God, He can handle it. But make sure to direct those emotions to Him and don’t stew in them alone.
His response to you may surprise you.
