We are continuing our focus on how to cope with evil and suffering.
Our first assertion was…
1. God has provided a future without evil for those who choose Him now.

Yesterday, we began to look at the second assertion…
2. God has provided peace and hope in the face of evil.

Our first instruction was…
1.) If we are going to respond correctly to the evil in this world, we must first receive from Jesus His peace that He freely gives His followers.

Now we want to affirm that…
2.) It is okay to express our frustration to God.

It’s okay to ask God, “Why?”

It’s okay to express our grief and our disappointment and our frustration and our pain. God understands all of that and welcomes our honest questions. He’s faced worse.

Many of us have found peace by what King David taught us in the many Psalms which he wrote.

Psalm 13 is one of them. Listen to this:

Psalm 13:1–4 (ESV)
1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 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? 3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, 4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

David obviously had some serious issues. He had faced evil and actually felt abandoned by God. So, he expressed that openly to God. And I don’t think God minded that at all, because God cares deeply about what we’re going through. And He wants us to be honest with Him.

In expressing our frustration regarding our situations, many make the mistake of blaming God and being angry at God and expressing their frustration with God.

This begs the question: Is it okay to be mad at God?

The answer is a resounding NO. NO it’s not okay. You see, if you are mad at God, you are implying that God did something wrong or that God failed to do something right. In doing this, you have placed yourself as judge over God – a dangerous place to be.

A perfect loving God never does wrong. However, our perception of things might lead us to feel that He has. So, here is what is so important: it’s okay to express our feelings toward God as long as we can admit that our feelings are not in tune with truth. It’s okay to say to God, “I feel hurt toward you. I feel you should have done this or that to fix my problem.” But you must, in the same breath, confess that you understand that your feelings are displaced because you know God never does wrong.

The moment that I best learned this was when my mother died. She had been sick for a long time and we couldn’t figure out what was wrong. When she got under the care of a different doctor, he discovered she had a staph infection. One of her medications had masked over it, so that it was not detectable until that medication was removed. By that time, it was too late and the staph infection took her life.

At that time, God gave me the freedom to express my feeling of anger. Yet at the same time, I would confess that I knew my anger was misplaced and not in tune with truth.

We will never be able to appropriately cope with evil and suffering, unless we keep a healthy perspective about God. And that leads us to the next instruction:

3.) We must always affirm that God is still trustworthy.

You may be able to identify with David in feeling like you’ve been abandoned. You may want to know what the deal is with God. You may not understand why He doesn’t fight against the evil on your behalf the way you want Him to. But, remember that God is still trustworthy even when your emotions may be trying to convince you otherwise.

We looked at the first four verses of Psalm 13. Let’s look at the rest:

Psalm 13:5–6 (ESV)
5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.