This is the final installment of this Mad at God series. I simply want to add a few thoughts and a general summary. Again, I am writing this series because I continue to encounter believers who feel that God has betrayed them, kept something good from them, or failed to keep some promise. Inevitably, they have distanced themselves from God and his church. Often they are married and their anger hinders their spouse’s and even their children’s relationship with the Lord.

I want to reiterate that being disappointed with God is not the same as being angry with him or taking up some offense against the Father. I can be disappointed and confused without judging God to be unfaithful. But if I am angry with him, it seems I must have judged him to be untrue, unfaithful or uncaring. In every instance in which I have heard people vent their anger, they have judged God to be unfaithful for breaking promises he never made or for not trusting him to have made a decision in their best interest.

It is not uncommon for us to pray fervently for something, and when it is apparent that God has turned down our request, we feel cheated. After all, the Bible says that whatever I ask for, believing that I have received it, it shall be mine (Mark 11:24). That is essentially the foundational scripture for the “prosperity gospel.” It tends to view God as a vending machine or a doting, wealthy grandparent who will give us whatever we want as long as we can imagine him giving to us. That is the “name it and claim it” approach to prayer. But we need to understand prayer in the context of God as a wise and loving Father, because that is the Biblical description of our relationship with him.

The truth is that we sometimes earnestly desire something that would not be in our best interest in the long-run. Because we tend to live life with a short-term perspective, we don’t understand why the Father did not respond to our fervent prayer. On more than one occasion, I have known seventeen-year-old boys who earnestly desired the newest, hottest car on the road to impress their friends and, especially, their girl friends. In my day, those were 400 h.p. Firebirds or Dodge Road Runners with a 440 engine, or a Corvette with a 427 stuffed under the hood. In the majority of cases, when the father gave into the request, the car ended up being totaled within 90 days. The seventeen-year-old did not have the experience or judgment to drive a car with that much speed.

Inevitably, even after the wreck, these guys wanted their dads to buy them a new care just like the one they barely walked away from. Sometimes we desire a relationship, money, the bright new house, the bright new car etc. and believe that those would open a door for years of happiness. But God knows our hearts and our future and our assigned destiny. He may not say “yes” to a prayer for a desire that in the long-run would not be in our best interest. We cannot see down the road far enough to know whether or not that road is leading us to a washed out bridge or a sunny drive in the country.

When our desire is not met, we may tend to think God doesn’t love us. But the love the Father has for us is “agape” love which, by definition, means to “always act in the best interest of the other person.” Some things we believe will be the key to our happiness might actually spell devastating pain down the road. If we believe that the Father loves us and knows what is best for our eternal destiny, even when he says “no” to something we deeply desire, we may not understand, but we will be able trust. The idea that if someone loves me, he or she will always give me what I want, is a very immature and childish way to understand love. God always has a greater blessing waiting for us, customized to meet our deepest needs in the best way. If we take offense at God, we may miss that blessing because we turn our back on the one who holds that blessing in his hand.

Ultimately, we need to come to grips with the reality that the Father is committed to our eternal destiny in heaven and not so much to our comfort and worldly desires while we are on this planet. Sometimes the greatest gift is a season of hardship as he tools our character. Some “good things” could move us away from the destiny he has planned for us. Some relationships or other desires become idols in our lives so that God cannot give place to those idols. There are many things we simply don’t have the ability to understand because we are confined to the moment we live in, rather than being able to see the road all the way to the end. From his view, God sees every washed-out bridge, every flooded low place, every ambush by the enemy, and every fallen tree blocking the road. Faith trusts God to guide us safely to the end. Saying “no” to some of our deepest desires, may be part of that guidance.

The apostle Paul makes the point in Romans 8:32, that if God loved us enough to give us life through the death of his Son, will he not also give us all things that will truly bless us? If we trust God to always be guided by love in his response to our prayers, we will have no need to be mad at him. If we believe he is committed to our welfare, we will judge him by all the things he has done for us, rather than the one thing he has not done. Too many of us have not decided who God is on the basis pf revelation, but on our short-term view of whether he has given us what we want. There will be things that make no sense to us and that definitely remain a mystery, but deciding who God is before we experience disappointment is the key to drawing close to him and accepting his “no’s” when they come.

Many believers and “former believers” have taken offense at God because they believed he allowed bad things to happen to them when he should have prevented them. Their view was that if God loved them, he would not have allowed a child to be molested, a divorce to happen, a woman to be raped, or a war to take lives.

I worked with man years ago, when I was young believer, who seemed to have no regard for God and a bit of disdain for the church. I tried to share my faith with him on numerous occasion, but he always changed the subject. One day he told me that he did not want to hear about Jesus anymore, but out of respect for our relationship, he decided to tell me why. He confided that he once had been married and very involved in church. He said he was a group leader, a deacon, and coached the kids softball team. One day, he came home from work early and found his wife in bed with his best friend. He said that if God would allow that to happen to him after he was faithfully serving him, then he didn’t want anything more to do with God. So he left the church, discarded his faith, and wanted no more conversations about it in the future. He felt that God had betrayed him by letting his wife and best friend make a bad decision. I think many others are mad a God for essentially the same reason.

The issue here is a misunderstanding of free will. Most of us would acknowledge that at some level we don’t want people telling us what to do or what to think and certainly don’t want to be controlled. That impulse is the desire to exercise free will. Theologically, free will means that I am able to make decisions without being controlled by God. God can influence me but cannot control me without violating my free will. The problem with free will is that I can make bad decisions and those decisions can hurt other people.

Billions of men and women wandering the planet with the capacity to make their own decisions is very risky business. Free will got Jesus crucified. It has begin countless wars. It has seen millions of babies aborted. We could go on. So why did God create man and give him free will? I can think of a couple of possibilities.

First of all, God made a free will choice to make us in his image. One of the primary qualities of being like God is the quality of free will. Without free will, we would be no more like God than a programmed robot would be like the engineer who made it. Of course, God’s original intent was for man to live on the earth and choose to love God as we want children to love parents.

In addition, the apostle John tells us that God is love. Love can certainly be given unconditionally, but eventually is not fully satisfied unless love is returned. It seems to me that love cannot be satisfying or fulfilling unless given freely. I am fulfilled by my wife’s love because she chooses to love me rather than being “forced” to love me. When someone loves another, that love assigns value to the one being loved. Ultimately, love that is programmed or given without choice is not truly love and assigns no value to the recipient. Women caught in highly controlled or highly abusive relationships may say the right things or do the right things that might be mistaken for love, but we would not define those emotional responses as love as much as we would define them as survival techniques.

What we must recognize is that God has given us all free will, whether we approve of that or not. That free will allows us to love, but also to injure. It allows ups to sacrifice but also be selfish. It allows us build up, but also to destroy. It allows us to choose faithfulness, but also unfaithfulness. God tries to persuade us to love, to do good, to give life, and to make positive choices, but he does not force our choice. He reinforces godly choices with blessings and discourages hurtful choices with discipline, but he allows us to choose.

My friend who found his wife in bed with his best friend, blamed God rather than his wife and friend. It never occurred to him that God may have put a number of road blocks and detours in the developing relationship between his wife and friend or that the Holy Spirit may have tried to bring conviction and warning to them as they moved toward adultery. But ultimately, God will allow us to exercise our free will. When we are hurt, either by our own decisions or the decisions of others, God will be there to help us pick up the pieces, heal, and move on. I must also point out that because God allows something, it doesn’t mean he approves of it or won’t deal with the perpetrator in his timing. Scripture declares that all those who choose to hurt others without repentance will stand before God and answer for that in the end. In the end, through our free will, each of us will choose life or death, eternity in heaven or in hell.

I must admit that this world is a dangerous place because of free will. Sometimes I wonder if we have too much freedom to choose, but without it, what kind of world would it be? Free will is a privilege bestowed by God that can bring glory to man made in God’s image or shame to man when he rejects the God who made him. But, let’s stop blaming God for what he has not done and hold man responsible for his decisions…knowing that the grace of God can put it all back together when e hold on to him inspite of the pain we might be experiencing.

As a pastor for over 40 years, I have heard many, many believers express their anger toward God. Typically, it was because they expected something from God that he has not promised. Often it was because he or she had experienced some traumatic event that they believed God should have prevented. At other times, it was because a fervent prayer had gone unanswered. In this blog, I want to talk about one more reason that a prayer may go unanswered or that hurtful things may happen that few believers are aware of.

This may be an unfamiliar concept to many, but I believe it is a valid, biblical concept. Your prayer may have gone unanswered or is yet to be answered simply because of the devil’s resistance. I think most believers assume that when a prayer goes up to God, he simply gives it a “yes” or “no” or , perhaps, a “not now.” If he approves, then it is a done deal. However, even when the answer is yes, there can be significant demonic resistance to the answer.

The classic example of this reality is found in Daniel 10. In that chapter, Daniel had a disturbing vision about a great war. Daniel was troubled by the vision and so began to fast and pray for an interpretation of the dream. After twenty one days, a powerful angel appeared to Daniel. The angel told the prophet that on the first day Daniel had begun two fast and pray, he had been dispatched with the answer to Daniel’s prayer. However, a powerful demonic prince, the prince of the Persian Kingdom, withstood the angel for twenty one days and would not let him pass to bring the answer to Daniel. Eventually, Michael, the archangel, came to take up the battle with the demonic prince so that the other angel could continue on his assignment.

If you are not familiar with the passage, this may surprise you. First of all, many believers give little or no thought to the demonic realm and many of us simply assume that if God approves our prayer then everything automatically lines up for our answer. The truth is that Satan may and does oppose what God has said “yes” to. In this case, the answer was delayed for three weeks and, if Daniel had not continued to pray, it is possible that Michael would not have been dispatched to join the the battle and Daniel would not have received his answer.

This opposition is a reality in spiritual warfare. We have a part to play in the battle and that part is sometimes persisting in prayer until we see the answer or some breakthrough. That prayer may take longer than three weeks, three months, or three years. Some might argue that since Christ defeated Satan through the resurrection, demons can no longer oppose God’s will. However, the apostle Paul himself wrote to the church at Thessalonica, “For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, did, again and again—but Satan stopped us” (1 These. 2:18). In the New Testament, post resurrection, we are warned that we must be aware of Satan’s schemes against us. We are told that we must struggle against him. We are told that he still seeks to devour us like a roaring lion. If we allow ourselves to fall prey to one of his scenes against us, hardship may come our way even though it is not God’s heart for us. If we give up praying too soon, an answer may not come because we became weary and gave in to the devil’s resistance.

A second reality, attached to spiritual warfare, is that something in our lives may be giving the devil a legal right to oppose God’s blessings and maintain a curse that has been established over our lives. Curses may be established because of unrepented sin in our own lives or as a result of sin in our bloodline. We are told several times in scripture that the consequences or punishment for the sins of our fathers, may be passed down for three or four generations. The consequences of these sins may be a curse that us operating on an entire family line (see Exodus 20:5).

Curses give Satan a right to oppress or afflict even believers. These curses may manifest as repeated business failures, conflict in families, mental illness, miscarriages, physical illness, a history of divorce, rebellion in children, bondage (additions), etc. The spiritual realm is a realm operated under law. There are many courtroom scenes is scripture in which the enemy brings a charge against of of God’s people in an effort to obtain a legal right to afflict even God’s children. Because God is a God of justice as well as grace, if the devil brings a charge against us in the courts of heaven that gives him a legal right to afflict us or oppose an answer to prayer, then God must allow him to do so because God, as a judge, cannot show partiality even to his own children. Many times, bad things happen to us or blessings fail to manifest because Satan has obtained a ruling against us in a court of heavenly law.

Our part, then, is to not only continue to pray for good things but also to confess, repent of, and renounce any sins that we are aware of on behalf of ourselves or our bloodline. Contrary to popular religious thought, these things are not always taken care of automatically by the blood of Jesus. In the first few chapters of Revelation, Jesus gave warnings to several churches and called them to repent and change their ways or bad things would occur. This is not a threat by an angry Jesus, but an indictor that their unrepented sin would open the door to demonic attacks, through which bad things would come their way.

We may need to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any thing that is giving Satan legal access to us or our children, our sins or the sins of our fathers, so that we can remove that legal access through the blood of Christ. Satan is described in Revelation as “the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night” (Rev. 12:10). That is his tactic so we must be diligent to eat with those issues in our lives or bloodlines so that he has nothing to use against us in court.

Some prayers may have gone unanswered because we did not persist. Other prayers may have gone unanswered or hurtful things may have occurred because something was giving the devil a legal right to harass, oppress, or afflict us or our families. Sometimes we are mad at God because of unanswered prayers or hurtful events in our lives or family lines. For the most part, the church has not taught us about the arena of spiritual warfare. Just as Israel had to engage in battle to posses the promised land, we too must often engage in battle to possess the blessings we are praying for. This is not God’s fault but our own or church leaders for not teaching us these realities.

Perhaps, God has given us more responsibility in obtaining our answers to prayers and his blessings than we may be comfortable with. And yet, scripture reveals these responsibilities and the power of the blood of Jesus to overcome the enemy. If you have not been schooled in spiritual warfare, I might suggest my book, Born to Be Free (published by Morgan James and available on Amazon), and begin to grow in your understanding and the strategies needed to overcome the resistance of the devil. There are other excellent books as well that address these issues. I encourage you to read one.

God is for us. He wants to bless us. He wants to answer our prayers. But there are things that can get in the way of blessings and answered prayer that he has revealed to us and for which he has provided solutions. It is true that God could sweep away the devil with one word, and keep us from all hurt and harm on this planet. And he will do so in time. But for now there is still a real enemy and real battle to be fought. Paul reminds us, “That our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God…” (Eph. 6:12-13). Our lack of knowledge about these matters does not exempt us from their reality, it simply leaves us at the mercy of an invisible enemy who wants to steal, kill, and destroy and then blame God. Blessings in Him.

As we continue in this series, I want to cover another possible scenario in which we may feel that God has not answered our prayers, when we feel that he should have done so. Again, I need to say that being angry with God is evidence that we have judged God to be unfair, uncaring, or unfaithful. That judgment will eventually distance us from God and his people and often takes those who are close to us with us. If we are angry, it is important to examine the source and deal with it. So let’s look at another possible scenario that may have caused us to judge God and be angry.

A fairly common scenario is one in which we may have preconceptions about how God should answer our prayers and so miss out on the answer he does send. The answer may actually meet the need we have in a profound way, but because it doesn’t come wrapped in the paper or box we imagined, we turn it down. The classic example of this is the account of Naaman in 2 Kings 5. In this account, Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He is described as a great man but one who had contracted leprosy. He was informed that a prophet in Israel, Elisha, could heal his leprosy. So in an effort to impress the prophet, Naaman took an entourage of horses and chariots along with gold, silver and expensive clothes as gifts to the prophet. In expectation of a moment fitting his status, he proceeded to Elisha’s house.

When he arrived, he was extremely disappointed. Elisha did not meet him grandly and personally, but sent only a servant with the message to go dip in the Jordon River seven times and he would be healed. Naaman was infuriated. He declared, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the anime of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy…he turned and went off in a rage” (2 kings 5:11-12)!

In essence, he had imagined that God would answer his prayer in a certain way – one that honored Naaman and recognized his great value. He had imagined a very splendid, impressive moment when the prophet would heal him, but instead got instructions from a servant to go dip in a muddy river he disdained. Because God sent his answer in a different package than he expected , he left angry and unhealed. Fortunately, his servant convinced him to do what the prophet had instructed and he was eventually healed. He nearly lost out on his amazing blessing, however, because he wanted the prayer answered on his terms, rather than God’s.

God is always multitasking , however, and often wants to answer the heart of our prayer in ways that also accomplish other things. In Naaman’s case, he needed to humble himself before God could answer his prayer. Otherwise, Naaman would have left more prideful and arrogant than when he arrived. Instead, he left healed, humble, and grateful and was a better man and leader for the experience.

God has promised to meet our essential needs – ” our daily bread.” We may turn that promise into an expectation of making us wealthy, powerful ,and influential…which would probably distance us from God because the wealth and success would make us feel self-sufficient, connecting us socially with people who value power and recognition much more than a relationship with Jesus.

Not being wealthy or famous may be in our best interest but we may still become angry when we can’t keep up with the high rollers at the office, when “the deal of a lifetime” did not manifest, or when the lottery number “we heard from the Lord” did not pay off. When God determines to meet our financial needs in a way we did not imagine, we may feel as if he has let us down or doesn’t care about the thing we know would make us happy. Of course, our expectation is not always about money.

When he points us to the muddy waters of the Jordan rather than the mountain streams of Damascus, we may feel slighted and disappointed in many areas. This preconception of answered prayers “on our terms” may be about the perfect relationship, career, house, car, or some sort of fame or significance. I have known people that turned down jobs, relationships, and opportunities because what God may have sent them didn’t meet their expectation or “make their cut.” The less than perfect job or spouse may have grown into the blessing they had always wanted, but they were unwilling to consider that something a little less than they had imagined or felt worthy of might actually be the better answer to their prayers and real needs. In other words, when I pray for a car and imagine a BMW, perhaps, I should also be open to the dependable Ford me makes available, because when the warranty expires on the BMW, you may wish you had a Ford.

I’m not saying we should always settle or take the first thing to come along. We should, however, examine our preconceptions and “our terms” when the answer to our prayers and desires go unanswered over time. Has God actually answered our prayer in a way we had not imagined? Would our imagined answer to prayer actually be in our best eternal interest? Have we asked God how we should pray in response to a need or desire we are feeling? It is often wise to pray for the “what,” but let God deal with the “how.”

Again, if we are angry with God, is it because we believe he owes us something he hasn’t actually promised? Is it because we haven’t detected the “spiritual trap” woven into the thing we are asking for? Is it because the things we have imagined for ourselves flow out of the flesh and not the spirit? When we do pray with expectation, let’s do so with an open heart that allows God to answer the need that is reflected in our request, in a way that is unexpected but has our best interest in mind. God is a good father. Hw will way every request and answer in a way that meets our true need more profoundly than we can often see or understand. That is when we simply trust that God loves us enough, to not give us every desire of our heart.


Next Week: We may be unaware that Satan has obtained some legal right to oppose God’s answer to our prayers and will continue to oppose the answer until the legal right has been removed.

As we continue this series on why people find themselves angry at God, I want to mention that disappointment may not be the same as anger. There are times when I have prayed for something and was disappointed that God did not answer that prayer as I had desired or imagined it. However, I continued in my belief that that God is good and faithful and that his decision not to answer my prayer at that time was still in my best interest or in someone else’s best interest. We only become angry when we feel that God has wronged us or betrayed us. It is in that moment, that we judge God as being untrustworthy, unfair, or uncaring. That is the position that puts us in spiritual danger because the moment we decide that God cannot be trusted, we cannot have faith in him and we are saved by grace through faith. In fact, in several places in the book of Numbers, God declared that Israel treated him with contempt because they had not believed him when he said he would give them victory over the tribes and even the “giants” in Canaan as he had promised. Distrust is unbelief and unbelief is an attitude that will distance us from God and his blessings if not dealt with.

The second reason I listed that may cause us to we be angry with God is that we may fail to recognize that many of God’s promises are conditional and, perhaps, we have not yet met those conditions. A quick look at Deuteronomy 28 will reveal that it is always God’s desire to bless his people. He lists a bevy of blessings that he wants to bestow on Israel, but the promise begins with the condition that Israel continue to be faithful to him and that they would be careful to keep his commandments. The conditional statement takes the form of, “If you are careful to… then I will.”

As I mentioned in my last blog, God is a good parent and will not reinforce sinful behaviors with quickly answered prayers and showers of blessings, because to do so would convince us that sin is not an issue and, therefore, would place us in danger. I have seen far too many believers live as if God’s commands didn’t matter. Whether it was in shady business dealings, a sinful relationship, continuing substance abuse, a “little pornography,” or years of anger and verbal abuse heaped on a spouse or a child, many believers justify themselves in those actions or believe that God’s grace will cover those behaviors even without confession and repentance.

John instructs us when he says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9). God does not require us to be perfect before he blesses us, but he does expect to be sensitive to sin, confess it as such, and repent so that the sin does not begin to affect our relationship with him or give Satan a legal right to afflict us. Dealing with sin as a believer is not automatic, God tells us to confess our shortcomings on a regular basis or our prayers may be hindered. Typically, when we fail to confess sins, it is because we don’t really want to give up the sin. That is nthje attitude that damages our relationship with the Father.

Another condition for answered prayers is found in James. “You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (Ja. 4:2-3). Sometimes, we don’t receive what we want because we simply do not ask. It is possible to hold an entitlement attitude toward God. In a culture that tries to convince us that we are entitled to every good thing, we may simply believe that God should meet our every desire whether we ask or not. I do believe that God, as any good father would do, will bless us without asking for every little thing, but God also wants us to ask so that we do not forget the sources of our blessings.

An additional condition is also found in that passage. James tells us that if we only pray selfishly for ourselves, God may not want to reinforce that attitude either. We can certainly ask things for ourselves, but God wants us to keep the needs of others in mind as well as concerns for the kingdom of God on earth.

There are additional conditions throughout scripture. If you want to be promoted, you must humble yourself. If you want mercy, you must extend mercy. If you want to avoid judgment, you must not judge others. If you want to be trusted with God’s blessings, you must be a good steward of those blessings. I’m convinced that we often ask for things that we are not prepared to steward well…a promotion at work, a ministry role at church, a marriage that we desire, some significant financial blessing that we are seeking. God may not give us what we are not prepared to manage well because we would damage what he has given us or it would damage us until we have matured more in that area of our life.

So, when God has not answered certain prayers, before being angry with him, we may want to ask ourselves if there is a condition for the answer to our prayer that we have not yet met. Not every prayer falls under this category, but many do.