I read a post about the shooting in Connecticut Friday, and this well-intentioned person mentioned there was a special place in hell for the shooter. Maybe you think that too. Maybe it’s true. Maybe that is all our brains can think of in order still believe in God during an experience of such great injustice. I can understand that.
When I was daily sitting with women who shared testimonies of their humanity being stripped from them through rape and torture, I had no idea how God could possibly fit into that. God must either not exist, or he is not God. And these people who inflicted pain on the women sitting in front of me, better as hell receive the justice THEY deserve.
Bitterness, anger, anxiety, darkness, that’s what followed me. I didn’t feel peace or rest, or even satisfaction.
But my anger was understandable. I was staring injustice in the face, and it broke me. It really broke me. My anger was justified, and righteous. Except, that it wasn’t at all.
I read a book called “The Cry of the Soul” during this season of my life. There were two chapters about anger- righteous anger, and unrighteous anger. Surely being angry at the injustice of human trafficking and having anger towards those who inflict this injustice is righteous.
But it’s not. Righteous anger is directing anger at the author or injustice.
“For 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.” –Ephesians 6:12
I was not comfortable with the pain I was witnessing, and feeling. I had never been through the pain these women had experienced, and it wasn’t fair they had to go through it either. And why would God passively allow this to happen? Sometimes I was brave enough to bring these questions to God, but when I wasn’t, my anger towards the offenders who inflicted pain on these women grew immensely.
My anger was understandable. It even reflected the character of God in some ways because of course God hates injustice. He is the author of love and redemption and restoration- but none of these characteristics seemed to be displayed in what I was looking at every day.
So I allowed myself to question God.
Choosing to be still opens the heart to even deeper dimensions of anger that go beyond the situation to the God who seems so silent, withdrawn or against us.”
-The Cry of the Soul
When I got real with myself, I was a lot angrier towards God than I was towards the offender. I wasn’t comfortable with serving a God and calling Him good while at the same time living in a world of such great injustice.
For a while, I even thought God was passive. That he watched injustice, and that was about it. He just watched it. I didn’t understand that he would allow such suffering on these precious ones.
But God isn’t passive. He is NOT passive. He is active. He took all of this injustice- the suffering of little girls who are raped by their own fathers, suffering of innocent children who lost their lives at the recent shooting, the pain felt by their mothers and fathers, children who are cold and without food, women who are beaten and oppressed, children trapped in slavery- He took all of his anger towards injustice, and placed in on his own Son.
He took all of the sin and suffering and oppression in the world, sent his son to die and suffer, so that we could have redemption. God is active.
God is active. He is love. He is sovereign. He is not absent.
But his timing is not my timing.
“Unrighteous anger is dark energy that demands for the self a more tolerable world now, instead of waiting for God’s redemption according to divine design and timing.”
-The Cry of the Soul
We want Eden. We were created for it. We hate injustice because we were created for something much greater.
Our redemption is coming. The price was already paid. Our pain, our anger towards injustice- whether it be the injustice in this shooting, the slavery of small children, or poverty in the world- it reflects a small portion of the grief the Lord feels as his creation wars against itself.
So I will not pretend that I am not angry at injustice. I will direct my anger where the Lord directs his, to the author of all evil-even the evil that lives in me.
“Our anger is always pitifully small when it is focused against a person or object; it is meant to be turned against all evil and all sin- beginning first with our own failure of love.”
-The Cry of the Soul
God is not absent. God is not apathetic to your suffering. He is grieving with you.
“Our destructive anger will be transformed into righteous anger as we grow in hatred of evil and love of good. To be righteously angry, we must be consumed by a holy fear of God.”
-The Cry of the Soul
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God, we yearn for heaven. Have mercy on our broken hearts, and give us grace to endure the suffering in this life, as we eagerly anticipate the day of redemption, and the glory of your presence. Receive all glory and honor. We are in awe of you. We will wait for you.
