I think it would be right to say that it is common for Christians to feel like blaming God for things. Sometimes sufferings arise in our lives that we just don’t understand, and it is easy to feel unhappy with God as a result.
A little
technique to use
I think if we feel
like blaming God for something, it is helpful to do the following.
Imagine that Jesus,
the God-Man, is sitting with you. And imagine that He is there to defend how He
has treated you. In other words, imagine that He is speaking to you, explaining
exactly why you have suffered the things that have made you upset with Him.
In His infinite
wisdom, He would know exactly how to convince you that He hasn’t treated you
badly.
You know that He
would succeed in convincing you of this, don’t you? You don’t really think, do
you, that if Jesus were trying to defend how He has treated you, He would fail to
persuade you?
Deep down every
Christian surely knows that this is true. If the Lord Jesus were to give a
defence of how He has treated any of us, a defence tailor-made to what each of
us can understand, what He said would be totally compelling. We would be
sitting open-mouthed, amazed at how perfectly He had defended everything He had
done to us and let us go through. We would see crystally clearly that He had
not treated us badly and that what we had suffered made sense.
Of course, when we do
feel like blaming God, Jesus isn’t actually sitting down with us,
talking to us face to face. But what we need to do is accept by faith that His
defence of how He has treated us would be totally convincing. Deep inside we
know it’s true. So, walking by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7), we need to
decide that we are going to trust His wisdom even if we can’t physically see
and hear Him defend how He has treated us.
Blaming God is a
sin
Although it is common
for Christians to feel like blaming God, we need to be clear that blaming Him
for anything is a sin. He is morally perfect and totally blameless in every way.
It is true that, when
we are suffering, God wants us to tell Him all about how we feel. This means
that if we feel blame towards Him, we should be honest and say this. We must
always be one hundred per cent honest with Him about everything.
Of course, He won’t
be shocked or even surprised by what we say. He already knows how we feel in
every detail. But it is good for us to express our feelings to Him in this way.
Nevertheless, a
Christian should never remain for an extended period of time with feelings of
blame towards God. We know that blaming Him doesn’t make sense. Deep down we
know that how He has treated us in no way conflicts with His goodness.
The example of
David
Instead of blaming
God for things in our lives, we do very well to follow the lead of David as
seen in the Psalms.
When David was
suffering, he poured out his heart to God. He pleaded with Him. But he stopped
short of blaming Him. He never went so far as to actually say that God was to
blame for anything.
For example, in Psalm
13:1-2 David says:
‘How
long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from
me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the
day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?’ (ESV)
It is true that at first sight, when David uses the words
‘Will you forget me forever?’ he seems to be blaming God for forgetting him.
But it would be a mistake to take this too literally. This question needs to be
interpreted in the light of verses 5-6, which end the Psalm:
‘But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart
shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.’ (ESV)
We could perhaps say that in this Psalm David gets close
to blaming God. We could maybe even say, because he was sinful like we are,
that he experienced some feelings of blame towards God. But he stops short of actually
blaming Him. He is expressing His frustration in a very vivid way. But he
doesn’t go so far as to blame the Lord.
Summing up
The next time you
feel like blaming God for something you have suffered or are still suffering, I
would encourage you to do what I have suggested.
Imagine that Jesus is
sitting down with you for the express purpose of defending how He has treated
you, that He isn’t in a hurry, and that His defence is going to be tailor-made
for what you are able to understand.
You know He would
succeed, don’t you? You know you would become completely convinced that He
hasn’t treated you badly.
So make a decision to
accept this by faith. Apologise to God for blaming Him for anything, renounce
the feelings of blame, and praise Him that He is with you to help you. And
remember too that on the cross Jesus suffered more than you can imagine and
that it was for you.
See also:
Some
Things for Christians to Do When They Are Hanging On by Their Fingernails
Trusting God When We Are Not Sure What to Do
How and Why Should Christians Rejoice?
Taking Heart from the Apostle Paul’s
Experiences of Setbacks and Failed Plans
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