After the horrors of Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel lost his faith. “Where were you, God of kindness?” he asked, recalling the evil he and others suffered. “In my childhood I did not expect much from human beings. But I expected everything from you.”
And yet, Wiesel realized later that his faith had never really left him. “It is because I believed in God that I was angry at God,” he told a journalist, “and still am.” You don’t get angry at someone you don’t believe exists.
We might feel uncomfortable expressing anger at God, but biblical characters did. “You deceived me, Lord,” the prophet Jeremiah cried (20:7). “Will you forget me forever?” David wrote (Psalm 13:1). “God has wronged me,” Job said (19:6). Unaware of Satan’s role in his misfortune, Job accused God of being cruel (10:3) and even subpoenaed Him to court (31:35)! While Job later discovered that his understanding was limited (42:3), it’s important to note God never rebukes his feelings.
Despite his questions, Elie Wiesel prayed, “Let us make up. It is unbearable to be divorced from you so long.” We too might be angry at God for not limiting the suffering in our world, but our expressing it to Him can become prayer in disguise—keeping us close to the God who wants us to bring not just our praise but our anger to Him too.
When have you felt angry at God? How can Job’s story help us express and keep a clear perspective?
Dear God, I'm angry at the suffering in this world, but choose to trust You.
For further study, read Job and the God Who Would Not Be Chained at odbm.org.
In Job 19:5-12, Job speaks with striking candor, not only hurling accusations at his friends but also at God. He says that God has “walled up” (v. 8 esv) his path, a translation of the Hebrew word that conveys building a barrier or enclosing something so it can’t escape. Job also claims God has “set darkness upon [his] paths” (v. 8 esv), suggesting not mere inconvenience but the removal of light itself, a symbol of life and order. He describes himself as a besieged city: God’s “troops” advance together, building “a siege ramp” against him (v. 12), implying a military approach.
Job refuses to sanitize his language. He dares to depict God as his attacker, one who “tears [him] down” and “uproots [his] hope like a tree” (v. 10). This isn’t blasphemy but rather the brutal honesty of a sufferer. His speech can remind us today that we can bring both our praise and our honest anger to God in prayer.
