Are you mad at God?

     My best friend of over twenty-seven years would continue to say to me, “Kristina, how can you be mad at God. Stop, I’m afraid for you.” She was afraid GOD would punish me for being human. She was the dearest woman in my life, and never were there two more opposite sisters who weren’t related by blood, but by Christ. We grew up in completely different environments. She grew up in a loving home with Christian parents, going to church every Sunday, hearing and learning all the wonderful Biblical stories. She has treasured memories of church camps, youth group meetings, and feeling loved by Jesus.  She says she always felt like the different one in her family, the black sheep, as some would call it. That is the ONLY thing we have in common.  She felt that she was the “rebellious” one, and I felt like I was the tender one, picked on, the vulnerable walking target. I grew up in a cold, hard, “survival of the fittest" environment with two parents who hated each other.  

Their divorce was so nasty, that if they were presidents of different countries, they would have annihilated each other, and their citizens, us their children.  Did they do it on purpose? Of course not, my parents did the best they could with what they knew, with what they grew up with themselves.  Neither of them grew up in a Godly home. Their parents did not grow up in a Godly home, and so on and so on.  My best friend was taught the fear of God as a properly balanced reverence for Him. I was taught to blame others. My mother blamed my father for everything that went wrong, even if he had nothing to do with it. If the toilet backed up, it was his fault, even if he hadn’t lived in the home in three years, it was still his fault. So, imagine growing up hearing that, what’s a girl to do, but to blame her Heavenly father for everything that has gone wrong?  I gave my heart, soul, and life and all my endeavors in dedication to God, yet I have been crushed by one heart break after another. Back about fourteen years ago, I was so angry over a devastating blow to my heart that I walked away from GOD for over two years.  I wanted nothing to do with Him.  The spirit was dead inside me and my mad took over any love I had for Him.  So, GOD let that experience in the wilderness teach me lessons I never would have learned had I not been forced out there to wander. I think He best answers that question through the greatest king who ever lived, the man known as “the man after God’s own heart,” David.

I cry aloud to the Lord; I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy. I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell of my trouble. When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who watch over my way. Psalm 142: 1-3

David spent thirteen years, give or take, running from a mad king who grew more insane by the year. Get this, an entire army for thirteen years could not find one man and execute him. Why? Because he was God’s man. So, hypothetically, I’m David, I’m in the cave of Addullam, Every single day I question GOD. Where are your promises? Are they coming at all? Did you really promise them?” Does God understand our frustration? Does God understand our hurt and confusion? The unequivocal answer is YES!  

Like a toddler or a pre-schooler, I’m mad at my Parent because he won’t let me have what I want. Do you get angry with your toddlers or pre-schoolers or adolescents just because they don’t understand why you do things for their good?  Well, our Creator doesn’t get angry with us for not understanding and for being human. Believe me when I say this, unless God is finished with the plan He has for your life, you are immortal for the time being, and no one can take you out of this world, until the will of God has been completed. Not only are you immortal, so to speak, but if the Lord planned it, the Lord will accomplish what He knows you will do. You can’t mess it up so bad as to not get the work done. He will complete it in you, regardless of where you are right now in life, walking with God, or still angry at God. If He planned to use you to further His Kingdom, He is going to use you, mark my words, rather, mark His words!

 

 

ADDENDUM

This is an old post from a defunct blog page I had about six years ago, and I’ve edited it just a bit, but the same sentiment is there, the same mad and frustration. I’ve spent the last six years trying to talk myself out of the mad or stuffing it, until today.  Today the Holy Spirit taught me that my mad was so deep in my soul that I could not cut all the way through it, myself.  Only GOD can heal it, so I just need to learn to live with it until He heals it.

That was HUGE! It was freedom, freedom to cry, freedom to tell GOD everyday how much He has disappointed me when the mad takes over, which lately is more often than the gratitude and worship for what I do have. So, is it okay to be mad at God? The answer, “It’s okay to be human and be mad at our Parent like our toddlers are sometimes mad at us. GOD says, “I AM bigger than your mad, and I will heal you, some day.”

 Living or dying in the Death Zone

I used to watch Bible study videos all day and night, but for the last nine months or so I have stopped watching them.  I don’t open my Bible much anymore because there’s no use learning the Bible if GOD won’t let you share what you’ve learned.  I need a platform to share what He has taught me and only He can provide that platform.  So, instead of watching sermons all the time, I'm back to watching mountain climbing disaster documentaries. I've seen every plane crash, boat disaster, deadly train derailment documentary, holocaust documentary, and mountain climbing disaster documentary that there is out there. The only thing I won't watch is underwater cave disasters. I'm far too claustrophobic for that. So, why do I watch disaster documentaries all the time?

One reason is I'm obsessed with death, because death here means really Living in Paradise. I tell people being born here is a life sentence on death row. Isn't that the sad truth? We are born to die.  Isn’t that crazy?  Seems pointless to me unless we do some good between the being born and the dying.  I’ve always wanted to do good, even before I had my first encounter with GOD.  He only enhanced my desire to climb that mountain of life and share with others how to do it.  Second, my life has been one small disaster after another, hence, I like to watch documentaries about people who have had it worse than me so I don't die of overdosing on despair and depression at my own pity parties.

I’ve learned so much about climbing Mt Everest from watching all these documentaries. You see there is a base camp where everyone starts out.  It’s above sea-level and where you spend the most time acclimatizing to the higher altitudes.  That’s like the years we spend in church.  Then as our bodies adjust, we move up to higher camps.  I’m amazed at how mountain climbing physically is the same as mountain climbing spiritually. Higher camps are where we go deeper with GOD.  Each camp requires you to acclimatize, getting used to the thinner air. There’s thousands of people in base camp, but each higher camp has a smaller population of people. The people thin out just like the air because many people cannot acclimatize and they get altitude sickness and have to quit their ascent.  They go back down the mountain, and most do not try to climb it again.  

If you don’t acclimatize, you’ll never get to the top alive.  Eventually, your body adjusts, but the higher you go, the more supplemental oxygen you will need to survive.  It’s not getting up to the summit that is hard, it’s the descent where most people die.  Anyone can have faith as high as a mountain summit, but coming down to help others get up there also is what is so dangerous.  I’m in the death zone.  I don’t know if I’m going to make it back to base camp to show others that climbing and descending is possible.  While on that summit, I had eight children and then I wrote eight books. I did it because I believed GOD could use me by working through me. 

Unfortunately, while climbing, I used up all my supplemental oxygen supply, and I have none left to help me get down.  We can decide to climb a mountain of faith, but it's only supplemental oxygen that will get us up and down still alive.  It’s hard to breathe when you are at the top of a mountain, because the air is so thin.  So too is it difficult to live with GOD at the summit, because nobody is up there with you.  When you reach the summit and spend time with GOD you learn so much about Him.  You learn that the only reason you are there is because He willed you there, and the only way you will be able to descend is because He wills it.  We can do nothing outside of GOD’s perfect will.  If He didn’t will or ordain it, then it isn’t going to happen. 

Believe it or not, we can get up to that mountain top alone, but we need a sherpa to help us down.  Sherpa’s are paid guides who know the mountain well enough to teach us how to survive the unforgiveable climate. The sherpa becomes our lifeline back down the mountain. The storms come in so fast and so furious that you can’t see two feet in front of you.  The wind and blistering cold kill you from the extremities inward.  I’ve got frostbite on my heart and I need a sherpa to heal it and help me down.  If GOD does not supply a sherpa to help me down, then I will die, all alone up here in the death zone. 

To me, the ultimate tragedy would be to get to the top, learn who GOD really is, encounter the storms on the way up and die in a storm on the way down.  No one benefits from what we learned on the way up to the summit or the things GOD taught us while we are up there, unless we are able to make it back down to base camp and share with others what we learned and how to survive. 

If I don’t survive, then nothing I’ve learned will survive.  If GOD chose not to send me a sherpa to help me down, then I don’t know Him like I thought I did.  He knows without a sherpa nothing I’ve done to get up there will be worth a hill of beans.  PUN INTENDED.  So, I don’t know if I will make the descent successfully to base camp to help others, because I don’t know if GOD will send me a sherpa.  Only He knows. 

 Where Our Feet Have Trod

    As many of my readers know, I've lived like Jeremiah in Job's World.  Anything that can go wrong has gone wrong.  Anyone who could stab me in the back has.  Here I am trying to warn people about the Just GOD of the Bible, the one my covenant, (but ex husband in the eyes of civil law only), calls a "mean-ass-God."  Yes, he really did call the GOD of the Hebrew Scriptures a "mean-ass-God."  He believes in GOD, he'll come right out and say that, but like the majority of the New Testament Church, he doesn't believe in the YHVH of both the New Testament and "Old Testament, the one Jesus spoke about, the One who holds his fate in His Hands.  Like most regular church goers, he has created a god in his own image, one he can live with, one that loves everyone, no matter what they do.  If it weren't for lies they tell themselves and others, the church would be dead. 

    Paul warned us that this would happen, and it did not take long for it to occur.  Satan is just as comfortable in the New Testament Church as he is in the open world.  As long as he can deceive those sitting in the pews with that warm happy feeling that GOD loves them just as they are, they won't want to change.  As long as he can tell them that GOD isn't to be really feared, but to be worshiped, praised and loved, the way He "praises/worships" us, then all is well with however they live. 

    I had dreadful parents.  I determined never to do as they  did to us and make us feel like we didn't matter.  So, I risked my life to have six more children than the doctors recommended, and I treated them all like they mattered.  I bent over backwards trying to serve them and be a good mother, while teaching them about YHVH GOD.  I did this with my husband also.  There was never any question about my love for them, because I showed them and I told them.  Yet, six out of the eight threw all of that away, as well as my husband.  I sit here, all alone, the only one walking with GOD asking Him how this could have happened.  The only answer I get is that the devil hates the truth.  In me are no lies.  I refuse to lie, so, I end up saying things people do not want to hear.  

   People listen to words, they do not watch actions.  Hearing words they like appeal to them.  I took in an elderly man with dementia, because his grown children ripped him off blind and dumped him in squalor, yet, when he was handing out money for anything they needed, they loved their dad.  As soon as the courts came and took his money away from them and him, and assigned him a conservator, they dumped him like a hot potato.  

    Then the truth hit me like a MOAB, (mother of all bombs).  We are the same way with GOD.  Those of us who know the true YHVH GOD constantly try to earn His love and favor, because we know it can be lost.  You can take Scripture and twist it to anything you want it to believe, but history proves the truth of Who YHVH GOD is.  Read the judgments against the people and nations who rose up against His people.  Read what He said about His people who turned to idols and dumped Him by the roadside. Open up the book of Hebrews, in particular, chapter 2 and chapter 6.  

    Those who have created a god in their own image refuse to believe that they will be judged based on how they live, even though, it is explicitly taught in the Bible.  You see, everyone's mirror is distorted.  No one has a correct mirror into their own souls.  If you ask anyone, "Are you a good person" who will answer correctly?  People who are bad think they are good and people who are good think they are bad.  It's like that with everyone.  Bad people don't believe they are bad.  Good people don't believe they are good.  Now, which ones does GOD love? He loves the ones who think they are bad, and those people will forever be trying to earn His love and favor, even though they already have it.  Jesus is clear in Matthew 12:50 as to who are really truly his family. 

  Jesus’ Mother and Brothers Send for Him

46 While He was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him. 47 Then one said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.”

48 But He answered and said to the one who told Him, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” 49 And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”

    Those who think they are good, or okay, think they don't have to earn GOD's favor, because they are deceived into believing they have it, regardless because of this "man-made doctrine of unconditional love."  It is a very tragic situation.  Here is one thing I posted on Facebook, and I think it's a pretty good scale in order to judge oneself by when looking in the mirror of our souls.  When you look into the mirror of your soul, if you can say yes to the question above, then you are in danger of having a false god, one you created in your own image.   I can tell you the people who will tell the truth, those on their death bed.  GOD recently brought a man into my life who is in end-stage liver cancer, and this man admits that he deserves this, because he earned it by living wrong.  He has  prayed and asked GOD to forgive him and take him to heaven.  He is now a humble man who cries at the drop of a hat and now  is only days away from Eternity in Paradise, just like the the thief on the cross, after he was crucified came to know about himself.