Anger Anyone?

Generally, we have been taught that it is bad to express anger. Along those lines, we have been taught it is certainly the absolute worst thing to get mad at God!

But have you read the Psalms? David gets downright belligerent with God at times! He lets all his anger out and you know what? God can handle it. He's big enough to take it. He knows everything anyway- why do we think we should "try" to keep it from him? As if he doesn't know exactly what's going on!

I have found it's better to let that junk out than to hold it all in. If you hold it in too long, it builds into an ugly mess that can physically hurt you. Here's a case in point from my Listening Prayer Community Conference these last few days:

As we were heading to the first night, my stomach felt like someone was pumping it up with an air pump. I wanted to burp or something, but couldn't. Nothing I did helped. I didn't feel sick in any other way, just that my stomach felt like it was about to burst. I asked God what was happening and he said it was a spiritual issue, not physical. That took a bit of a load off, because I was wondering if I should get to a hospital! Since it was spiritual, I prayed against it and it subsided enough to comfortably sit through the evening's teachings.

At one point they asked us to listen for something God wanted to deal with in our personal prayer sessions (scheduled throughout the weekend). When I asked, I got a simple word: "anger." I wrote that down and some other thoughts that came during the evening's teachings as well. I went home with a little pain but by morning it was all gone . . . until we headed out to the second evening's session! The pain returned with a vengeance and grew to the point where I couldn't sit still during the worship. In fact, I never made it to any of the evening's scheduled events, because I ended up in a private room with someone praying for me. The pain was so bad at this point I couldn't sit still for a moment and couldn't find a single position where it was bearable.

But as we prayed we began dealing with anger that had built up within me all during my life. The more we dealt with that anger, the less my stomach hurt. My guess was- we were on to something! Finally, I was directed to go to the "soaking room," where people could just sit in God's presence and soak him in. I was instructed to tell God everything I was angry about and it focused on my anger at him.

I won't detail everything I spewed out at him, but I will say that when I finished, all the pain was gone and it hasn't come back since. Saturday, we finished up the issue and when we were through praying, I felt "lighter" than I have ever been! Issues that had been weighing me down for my entire life were gone- for good!

I find it interesting that I have long taught we can get angry at God; that we need to- he can handle it and it helps us express ourselves to God so that we can deal with our pain. But in my own life, I felt like I shouldn't do that. Now I know different- and I mean "heart knowing" as opposed to "mind knowing." Sometimes that makes all the difference.