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How to Pray When You're Pissed at God: Or Anyone Else for That Matter - Hardcover

Punnett, Ian

 
9780307986030: How to Pray When You're Pissed at God: Or Anyone Else for That Matter
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0307986039 ISBN 13: 9780307986030
Verlag: HARMONY BOOK, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

When things really go wrong, what do you do with the feeling that God is to blame? A popular Coast to Coast radio host (and Episcopal clergy) provides some answers. In a first of its kind book, Ian Punnett provides a spiritual path for expressing your rawest emotions through prayer and how to rebuild a relationship with one's higher power--or anybody else in your life.

In this important and practical book, Ian Punnett provides insight on feeling anger and resentment toward God and offers advice on how to deal with the pain and blame that accompanies these emotions. In a book that is edgy, timely, funny and compassionate, Punnett presents real help in everyday language for transforming the negativity of anger into a positive and useful force that will ultimately help us pray more effectively, bring us closer to God, enhance our spiritual relationship, and change the way we live and love others.

After a divorce, a broken friendship, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job or even the accumulation of all the tiny cracks in our spirit from life's disappointments, it’s easy to feel pissed at God. When anger is left unchecked, it is harmful to our minds, bodies and souls.

“How to Pray When You’re Pissed at God is not “the last word” on angry prayer,” Punnett writes, “but it might be the first words you have ever heard on the topic. By the end of the book, it is my hope that you’ll understand the role of anger in our lives, the benefit of honest prayer, and the need for honest, angry prayer in the lives of the faithful and faithless.”

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

IAN PUNNETT is one of the hosts of Coast to Coast AM, a legendary radio show syndicated on almost 600 stations across North America and a deacon in The Episcopal Church who received his Masters of Divinity degree from Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

Is It Okay to Be Mad at God?

On a Sunday in November 2010, Buffalo Bills wide receiver Steve Johnson was so angry after having bobbled what would have been a winning touchdown against the rival Pittsburgh Steelers that he tweeted this to his many thousands of followers: “I praise you 24/7!!! And this is how you do me!!! You expect me to learn from this!! How?? I’ll never forget this!! Ever!! Thx tho!”

No word on whether God actually follows Steve Johnson on Twitter, but apparently a lot of God’s followers do.

After his digital outburst, Johnson received a barrage of criticism not only from Bills fans but also from sports talk show hosts and callers from around the country. One guy who posts comments online under the name “A Bit Concerned” reflected the backlash when he wrote, “Steve should start attending Sunday school or Bible study more often to get better acquainted with GOD. Or perhaps even a hearty chat with the Bills’ chaplain will help him cope better. More importantly it is time to grow up and own his mistakes.” Receiving little support, Johnson retreated days later and responded to the criticism with a new tweet: “No, I did not blame God, people. Seriously?”

Too bad. Steve Johnson should not have backed down. Before he buckled under the pressure from those too nervous or too timid to express anger and frustration toward God, Johnson was in the company of angels.

The Bible is full of heroes who took their relationship with God seriously enough to honor their Creator with honesty. In fact, anger between the Creator and creation is older than the Bible itself. For example, years before the Bible was even written down, Moses and God quarreled after the children of Israel got drunk and bowed down to a graven image of another god. After all God had done to free the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, his people wanted to replace him with a golden calf. God was as angry as someone who has just come home from a hard day at work and catches their spouse cheating in the marital bed. God declared to Moses that this was the last straw, and that, as God, God was going start again with humanity. A lesser prophet might have stepped aside and let the Creator wipe out creation, but Moses had the chutzpah to challenge God on whether or not God’s reaction was fair. God backed down.

Now, you might be saying, Moses’s cause seems more righteous than a dropped football pass--and you’d be right (unless you’re a Buffalo Bills fan). But the lesson is the same: God can handle the occasional angry outburst. God can handle being questioned.

The biblical story of a righteous man named Job is another example of somebody who stands up to God and lives to tell about it. In the not-so-surprisingly titled book of Job, God and Satan treat our protagonist like a lab rat. Why? To determine whether a prosperous, faithful man would curse God if everything he loves is taken away. So, long Bible story short, God allows Satan to wipe out Job’s fortune, kill Job’s seven sons and three daughters, and then cover his body in boils. Job feels that God was unjustified in making a good man suffer, and he tells God exactly how he feels--despite tremendous pressure from his friends to keep his mouth shut. Job’s wife, on the other hand, has another thought. She suggests he “curse God and die.” Job does neither. Instead of cursing God, he calls God out on the series of tragedies he has suffered and he demands answers.

Let the battle begin! Job jabs with “Why?” God counters that “God is God,” and God could crush Job’s head like a grape if God felt like it--an argument Job has a hard time refuting. Yet after a few rounds Job wins the match (arguably) because he is not punished for questioning God as his friends had feared he would be. In a surprise ending, instead God sides with Job and rebukes Job’s friends for being such candy asses (I’m paraphrasing here). Subsequently, Job’s suffering is turned into a blessing--he ends up with even more stuff than he had before, including seven new sons and three new daughters (the Bible even makes the rather tacky point that the new living daughters are better looking than the old dead ones--yikes). Job lives another 140 years boil-free. The Bible doesn’t concern itself with how Mrs. Job feels about God. Just sayin’.

So what’s the moral here? Well, there are many, but one is that God wants us to speak our truth when we are experiencing disappointment, resentment, and anger and that it’s perfectly fine to express our beliefs in times of crisis. In the end we have to get good with what God has planned for us, but we do not have to go quietly. Quick side note: The theme of “I will not go quietly” is powerfully represented in the movie The Apostle, written by, directed by, produced by, and starring Robert Duvall. In a pivotal scene, a charismatic, slightly psychotic Pentecostal preacher argues so loudly in prayer with God that he wakes the neighborhood. The preacher’s mother, played by June Carter Cash, answers a complaining call from an angry neighbor by saying, “That’s my son, that is. I’ll tell ya, ever since he was an itty-bitty boy, sometimes he talks to the Lord and sometimes he yells at the Lord. Tonight, he just happens to be yellin’ at him.”

Even Jesus of Nazareth--hands-down the most obedient son who ever lived (“Wait, you want me to find twelve friends who are willing to die, perform lots of miracles, pick a fight with the local officials, and then get myself nailed to a tree? Sure, Dad.”)--does not go quietly either. Crucified, bloodied, and thirsty he cries out in agony quoting the first line from Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It is one of the saddest, most desperate prayers in a Bible full of pain, frustration, and anger.

In fact, prayers of the pissed off are everywhere in the Bible, so this is probably a good time to talk specifically about the Book of Psalms, a collection of 150 Hebrew songs and prayers that are some of the best-loved spiritual writings of all time and a source of inspiration for billions of members of different faiths around the world. Commonly the psalms are broken up into five or six main “themes,” including but not limited to psalms of praise, psalms of thanksgiving, royal psalms, psalms for special occasions, so-called “curse psalms,” and psalms of lament.

Most of these categories are self-explanatory, but two need more illumination because they interconnect. Let’s look briefly at the curse psalms and the psalms of lament.

Curse psalms are dominated by expressions of anger and frustration, and are characterized by grievances directed at others and at God, sentiments that can get really ugly. The general consensus among scholars is that Psalms 5, 6, 11, 12, 35, 37, 40, 52, 54, 56, 58, 69, 79, 83, 109, 137, 139, and 143 are grouped together as curse psalms, while other psalms have curse elements to them. Lament, on the other hand, is a tricky word in relation to these prayers because lament means “an expression of sorrow or grief.” The problem, then, is that there is a difference between saying, “I am sad, God,” and saying, “God, this really sucks that I am so sad, and you really could be doing something about it, God, but you’re not.” Lament psalms are often laced with anger toward and resentment of God. For example, Psalm 5 doesn’t just lament God’s seeming unwillingness to strike out against the enemies of the person who is praying; it tactfully (more or less) schools God on how God should be dealing with what the writer perceives as bad...

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Verlag
HARMONY BOOK
Erscheinungsdatum
2013
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0307986039
ISBN 13 
9780307986030
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
174
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Verantwortliche Person
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