DEAR GOD, I'M ANGRY!

I guess I’m telling you something you already know about me, God.

I’m enraged these days.  That is, I have a level of anger built up inside of me that is beyond simple annoyance, and thus meeting the dictionary definition of “rage.”  By being in rage or enraged, I carry this angry emotion in my body and mind in ways that feel like a 100 lb. weight.   It’s not good for my body’s health.  So it’s up to my mind to get it out of my body somehow.  Get it off my mind.   Turn my “enraged” to “outraged” and get it “off my chest” before I get a depressed mood that will further weaken my body and damage my health.

And so I’m telling you about it.   Giving my rage over to you.   Why?  Well, because it really does concern you probably more than it does me; involves you more than it involves me.

I absolutely hate what is happening to your own precious children in today’s world.   Places like the Sudan, Palestine and Gaza in particular, and Ukraine, just to name a few.    And now in places like the USA, and in our cities like Minneapolis, Washington, DC, Chicago, Portland, and Los Angeles.   I hate the suffering that is being caused, the fear being struck in the hearts of your kids, dear Lord; your own precious creation.    I’m enraged when I think of the injustice being caused by evildoers who are in power within our world today.   Those who hurt others in body and mind because, well, they can.   I’m enraged by those who love things and use people.   By those whose money buys injustice and the pains of others for their own pleasures.   I loathe what evildoers are doing to other people, even other animals, all of whom are your precious creatures.  My heart breaks for the heartbreak within others.   Here I’m talking not just about children losing their parents, spouses their mates, parents their children in places of evil hostility and political violence, but in even dogs whose masters can never again return home to them.   Heartbroken souls who must endure the hell of death in their loved ones for no natural reason other than evil itself, and because of evil doers who make heartless or mindless choices to harm others to please themselves.  I hate evil!!!

Here's what that hatred does inside of my own mind and body, dear God.    It creates a desire to in turn hurt those I judge to be my enemies and others’ enemies and your enemies.    I want to exact retribution.   I desire in my own heart the same pain for those of your children causing pain in others and realize that my own desires are then evil in themselves.    I want to hurt others to gratify my own feelings of rage and hatred; to release my own anger by directing it outward as punishment for your children.   

Where other people’s children are concerned here on earth, I’m more apt to tell their parents when their kids have misbehaved than I am to punish their kids myself.   I don’t lay a hand on others’ kids in anger.   I instead choose to tell the parents what I had observed.    Which is why I'm now telling you about your misbehaving children. Even though I know you already know. And you don't seem to mind being told by me and so many others.  

So God, here it is.   My anger.  It is my enraged emotions reactive to the sight and sound of today’s news around the world.   It is your children behaving badly and causing horrible pain and suffering, awful injustice, downright evil behaviors every minute in every day, it appears.    I am furious!   I need to get my own outrage out!  So I’m telling you about it.   About what I’m seeing and hearing that I believe is wrong.   That is evil!   That needs your attention!!!

You, O God, now seem to be telling me something in return.   You seem to be saying right now that when I sense in any way that your children are doing evil or harming others that I must tell or show them.   “See something, say something.”   Or, if they won’t hear me, help them see me.  Tell them and if they don’t listen, then show them.  Renounce their evil, resist their social injustice, and demonstrate my resistance.   Keep, after all, the vows of my own Christian baptism and if words are not effective then demonstrate in deeds.   Disobey evil laws publicly.  Help evil doers see their need for a change away from the doing of evil.  

But why, God?   Why speak out and act out in this way?

God, you seem to answer in this way: because this is what loving your enemy looks sounds and looks like.   Love is not about pleasing others by giving them what they want.   That’s a demonstration of like, but not love!  Love is about helping others by giving them what they need, even when it is not at all what they want.   It’s what loving parents do for their children, but it’s also what loving adults do for their enemies.   Help them get what they need, which may be correction and redirection away from their evil deeds.

And, so, God, you now seem to finish your own reply by saying this:

“Dear Dan, I am also angry! And I will be correcting and redirecting my children’s evil deeds in my own way that is not yours.   But you, too, must speak and act out your anger toward your enemies in loving ways that attempt to help them change as needed to become their better selves.   If not, you’ll not have loved your enemies to the best of your own ability.   I’ll give them my love and you need to do the same.    And because I love you, I will help you do as needed even when it is not as you may have wanted.”

I’m trying. You’re right in reminding me loving my enemies is what I need to do, not anything I want to do.   And I do need help.   I need to see my enemy as human above all, fallible like all of us, and in need of love like all of us.   None of us really need to be liked, though we want that for ourselves. And love is a necessity because it alone has the power to cast out fear.   But most of all I need love to cast out any fear of my enemy.   The opposite of enemy love is not enemy hate.   It is enemy fear.  

“I will fear no evil” (PS 23:4) because you are with me.    You are with me in love, but not in fear.   If I choose to fear my evil enemies, then I must fear them alone.  If I choose to love them instead of fearing them, we will love them together.  “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (I John 4:18).    There is indeed room for hate inside love, for one can love the person and hate that person’s evil deeds.   You are still with me in loving the enemy and hating the evil actions of that enemy.     You are still here to help me get my needs met, O God, and I need not be afraid.  

Thank you then, God, for being “with me” in my anger and even hatred of my enemy’s evil deeds.   He doesn’t even know how evil he is acting, so with you we can forgive his ignorance and his wrong belief in his own intelligence.   “Father, forgive them for they know now what they do”  (LK 23:34).   Thank you for helping me see that my enemy is behaving based on fear of me and so is motivated to control me for his own self-protection, no different than your enemy was, dear Jesus, as you hung on that cross.    Thank you for helping me see that there are two sides to anger, the first being an emotional side where fear demands control over others and leads then to persecution and, in the extreme, even a crucifixion of one’s enemy.   I’ll call that the Satan side.   Thank you for the other side. The Jesus side.   The rational side, where one uses anger not to control out of fear but rather to influence out of love.   Help me, then, to use my influence to help my enemy get his need met for the only thing capable of truly overcoming his fear: love itself.  

“I will fear no evil” for you are with me, God, in working to cast our my enemy’s irrational and ignorant fear first by forgiving it and the ignorant behavior that follows it, and then helping him receive the love necessary for that emotional fear’s full removal.   I pray for my frightened and dangerous enemy and for all hurt people who then hurt people.               

Yes, God, I understand that you have no control over my enemy, for you have no fear or need for control over anyone you do not fear.   I understand you can only love, and therefore can only influence my enemy, inform his decisions but never make them for him.    I also understand that what we sometimes still call sin, you regard as being fear itself for that is the absence of love and the separation from you we sometimes choose.    Fear itself is what motivates us to seek control over others and thus do evil toward them.   

Help me remain angry at evil's "fearful control" in this world and in my enemies, that I may use it to energize and motivate the "loving influence" that unites, atones (at-ones) and reconciles me with you.    May our angry love together cast out fear one tiny word and deed at a time today and every day.

Amen.