Ranting at God the right way

As I’ve listened to Christian music in the car over the past couple of weeks, I realized something I’ve not noticed before. About 70-80% of the music is what I would call “songs of lament.”

For example, take this opening set of lyrics from a song by Casting Crowns:

“I was sure by now, God you would have reached down
And wiped our tears away,
Stepped in and saved the day.
But once again, I say amen
And it's still raining.” 

Or this one:

“Here I am, Lord, and I'm drowning
In Your sea of forgetfulness
The chains of yesterday surround me
I yearn for peace and rest.”

I could give more examples, but you get the idea. Seemingly endless expressions of pain, sorrow, loss, and for good reason. As Jesus said, “In the world you have tribulation…” (John 16:33).

Such “tribulation” can weigh on a person over time. Does it you?

When we express such feelings to God, sometimes blended into our prayers is a subtle accusatory tone that faults Him for what’s happening and wonders why our cries seem to fall on divine deaf ears. We end up in a place described by Professor John L. Thompson who said: “Namely, that the Christian life looks a lot more like humiliation and rejection than it does like triumph and glory.”  

And that feeling can get old, fast.

When it does, it can lead to irritation, anger, and a ranting prayer life that seems taboo in the Christian faith. But should it be?

Fist-shaking at God

J. Todd Billings says no.

At age 39, Billings, a professor at Western Theological Seminary, was diagnosed with an incurable blood cancer, Multiple Myeloma. His battle with cancer led him to write a book entitled Rejoicing in Lament, where he explores a provocative question: is it ever OK to outright vent at God?

Many Christians say no. They maintain that whatever comes our way, we are not to utter any words of disapproval at God but instead exhibit a stoic attitude through each trial, “considering it all joy” (James 1:2), even if it’s done through gritted teeth.

But Billings notes that we see something remarkably different in Scripture, especially in the Psalms. He notes that while psalms of singular thanksgiving and praise to God are certainly found in the Bible, they are rarer in the book of Psalms than ones of lament.

Betcha didn’t think that was the case, did you?

Moreover, these lamenting psalms aren’t shy at pointing the finger at God for the trouble the author is experiencing. Just look at part of Psalm 66: “You brought us into the net; You laid an oppressive burden upon our loins. You made men ride over our heads” (vv.11–12, my emphasis).

Or how about Psalm 88: “You have put me in the lowest pit … You have afflicted me with all Your waves. You have removed my acquaintances far from me; You have made me an object of loathing to them … I suffer Your terrors; I am overcome. Your burning anger has passed over me; Your terrors have destroyed me” (vv. 6-8, 15–16, my emphasis).  

Odd, isn’t it, how so many of us work at a fever pitch to not make God out to be the efficient cause of our troubles, but the psalms of lament say something completely different. And so, because of that tension, rarely are those psalms read from the pulpit. 

But the Church has done a disservice when these expressions of pain are hidden from it. Carl Trueman says this about losing the psalms of lament in Christian worship: “By excluding the cries of loneliness, dispossession, and desolation from its worship, the church has effectively silenced and excluded the voices of those who are themselves lonely, dispossessed, and desolate, both inside and outside the Church. By doing so, it has implicitly endorsed the banal aspirations of consumerism.”

That result has some terrible, practical applications. Billings says how most believers he’s encountered cannot talk to him when he brings up his cancer battle: “I’ve found that my fellow Christians know how to rejoice about answered prayer and also how to petition God for help, but many don’t know what to do when I express sorrow and loss or talk about death.”

Here’s an uncomfortable question for you: Would you know what to do or say to Todd in one of his many moments of grief? As part of Christ’s body, we need that ability.

So how do we get better at all this?  

The first step is to understand that God put those psalms in His book for a reason — to show us that crying out to Him is not sinful, but rather an expression of faith. Notice that the psalms of lament have the author running not away from God, but to Him for help. By contrast, total despair that lacks hope does not pray. We are not to “grieve as do the rest who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13), but instead “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6).

Next, realize that venting out our true feelings to God isn’t sinful. As an example, many overlook the fact that at the end of the book of Job, after all of Job’s outbursts, God chastises Job’s friends and says, “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has” (Job 42:7, my emphasis).

Miroslav Volf says this about Job’s rants and the psalms of lament: “… rage belongs before God ... not in the reflectively managed and manicured form of a confession, but as a pre-reflective outburst from the depths of the soul. This is no mere cathartic discharge of pent-up aggression before the Almighty who ought to care. Much more significantly, by placing unattended rage before God we place both our unjust enemy and our own vengeful self - face to face with a God who loves and does justice.”

Lastly, we should remember that, like in Job, we don’t always have all the answers — that confusion over hard circumstances is something experienced constantly in life. Moreover, the overwhelming anguish we feel when we think hard times are a punishment from God should be countered with the fact that the vast majority of lament psalms do not assume that God is punishing or disciplining us for sin through suffering.   

Those things being true, as is often the case in the lament psalms, Billings says, “[Our] final declaration of trust is not dependent on having one’s situation fixed or immediately ‘resolved.’” Rather it looks to the end and says with Abraham, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Gen. 18:25).

So, if you’re hurting right now, go ahead, rant at God, and tell Him how you really feel. The broken and the lonely and the hurting always have a place before Him.

And that includes you and me.