What Do You Do When You Feel Hurt by God?

I’m taking a little break from the Privileges of the Kingdom series with this post. I’m not done with that series and I’ll come back to it when I’m ready, but since this is essentially my digital journal of sorts, I had to remind myself that there’s no point trying to write around what I’m actually living. I’m writing for myself first and everyone else second, and as my subscribers grow and the encouragement continues to come in, I’ve had to be mindful not to get too caught up in performing for analytics instead of keeping it real. I’m also learning that when it comes to staying connected to the Vine, there has to be a healthy balance between theology and devotion, because it’s one thing to know truth intellectually, and another thing entirely to stay close to God when that truth is being tested in real time.

Over the past two weeks I’ve been learning what it means to be angry and not sin. I’ve been learning it in the uncomfortable place where faith and pain are neck and neck, where you still love God, still believe in Him, still want Him, but at the same time you’re hurt, confused, disappointed, and trying to work out what it looks like to stay soft before Him when part of you feels bruised. I think for a long time I had absorbed the idea that anger was something carnal, something that needed to be sorted out quickly before it became visible, especially in the presence of God. There’s often this unspoken expectation in the Body that if you’re upset, the mature thing to do is to get over it quickly, pray it away quietly, and come back sounding composed. So many of us have been taught, directly or indirectly, that emotions are acceptable as long as they are tidy, as long as they are processed quickly, and as long as they do not sound too intense. But the reality is life doesn’t always wound you in tidy ways, and pain doesn’t always arrive in a form that can be wrapped up in a cute christian buzzword.

The Holy Spirit has been teaching me that anger itself is not sin, and I know that should feel obvious because the verse says exactly that, but I don’t think many of us have really been taught to live as though that is true. We’ve been taught to fear and silence anger more than understand it and we’ve been taught to associate it with carnality, rebellion, immaturity, and a lack of self-control, when actually anger can sometimes be the most honest response to pain that is deep rooted. Sometimes anger is not a sign that your heart is hard; sometimes it’s a sign that something in you is hurting. Sometimes it’s grief with a little bit of heat added, sometimes it’s the cry of a heart trying to make sense of what feels unfair. Sometimes anger rises because something precious has been touched, something painful has been reopened, or something has happened that doesn’t sit easily inside you no matter how much Scripture you know. Anger can become sinful, yes, but anger itself is not automatically the problem. The problem is what we do with it, where we take it, how we carry it, and what it is allowed to grow into.

I mentioned in a post earlier in the year that one of the instructions the holy Spirit gave me for this year was to abide, and I’m learning in real time what that really means. I also mentioned in that post that the word abide in John 15:4–5 speaks of remaining, dwelling, staying, and making your home there rather than visiting occasionally. It speaks of a kind of permanence, settledness, and refusal to detach. I’m now realising how easy it is to talk about abiding when your emotions feel steady, when your heart feels warm toward God, when prayer is flowing, when worship comes easily, and when every part of your life feels relatively smooth. It’s easy to feel like you’re abiding in the Vine when you’re in a sweet season with God, when loving Him feels uncomplicated and your emotions are not fighting you. But I’m learning first hand that the true test of abiding is not how close you feel to God when everything is peaceful. The true test of abiding is what you do when your emotions are raging, when your heart is heavy, and when those emotions are directed at God more than anyone else.

If I’m being real, I’ve been really angry at God recently, and I don’t mean that in a throwaway faith type of way. I mean it in the quiet, very personal way that happens when your life has contained things you never would have chosen and when your heart is trying to match what you know about God with what you have had to endure. This kind of anger isn’t loud and expressive, for me anyway. It’s looked more like me quietly trying to navigate the tension between still believing that God is good, while not understanding why some things have been allowed to go the way they have. It’s the tension of trying to stay tender toward the One you need most while also carrying real hurt in His direction. It’s loving God and still feeling wounded, knowing He is holy, sovereign, wise, and good, and still feeling the sting of what He didn't stop, or what He has asked you to carry that doesn’t seem fair.

Because I’m naturally very reserved, introverted, and non-confrontational, my instinct when I feel hurt by someone is usually to withdraw. I don’t tend to lean in when I feel upset; I pull back, go quiet, and create distance. That’s always been my default way of protecting myself. So naturally, when I started feeling a way toward God, my instinct was exactly the same. I wanted to withdraw, to stop praying, stop worshipping, stop seeking, stop pressing in. I wanted space, silence, and to retreat inwardly and leave the conversation alone. I was so upset with God that I genuinely didn’t want to speak to Him. I didn’t want to force a conversation, dress anything up, or put on a spiritual performance. There was one day in particular when I really didn’t feel like praying. One day turned into two, and after about three days of my silence what really caught me off guard was how unnatural that withdrawal felt and after a few more days it dawned on me why. He is quite literally the air I breathe, so how exactly do I withdraw from the One I am completely dependent on? How do I distance myself from the One who is not just a part of my life, but the source of it? The more I thought about it, the more I realised that it wasn’t actually possible. There’s not a single area of my life where I can confidently say I could function without the Holy Spirit. He’s not somebody I can quietly cut off and carry on as normal, like I tend to do with people. He’s the source of my life, my help, my comfort, my wisdom, my strength, my conviction, my peace, and everything in between. So what does withdrawal even look like when the person you are trying to withdraw from is the very breath in your lungs?

I started to feel the Holy Spirit tugging on me to bring everything I was feeling to Him and to be honest, I didn’t respond immediately. I still wasn’t ready to express myself in a way that looked reverent and put together, so I held it down like life taught me to. But the reality is, a dam can only hold back water for so long, and sure enough, the dam collapsed. When it did, I laid it all out before Him exactly as it was, no filter, no editing, and no attempt to sound poised in the way religion trained me to. I told Him exactly how I felt and I didn’t hold back. I refused to let shame or condemnation make me feel guilty for having emotions, and I refused to let religion silence me into pretending. I carried every bit of it to Him, the hurt, the disappointment, the confusion, the anger, all of it, and in that moment I realised that this too was worship. This was a defining moment for my faith and I’m actually really grateful for the way it unfolded for more reasons than one. For one, this moment deepened my understanding of what true worship is beyond a spontaneous flow. It reminded me that true worship is a heart posture that breeds a lifestyle, a lifestyle that turns to God in all situations, seeks Him out in all seasons, and depends on Him for every single little thing. It corrected the misconception that I could only call something worship if it looked a certain way. If it sounded beautiful, composed, full of praise, full of surrender in a way that felt visibly spiritual. But I’m learning that worship is not always neat, and that’s okay.True worship looks like laying your whole heart before God without pretending, it’s that raw honesty in His presence, it’s choosing to remain before God with your pain wide open rather than taking that pain elsewhere and letting it turn you cold. And I think that is part of what abiding has been teaching me. Abiding is not just staying when staying feels lovely. Abiding is staying when leaving would feel easier. It’s continuing to dwell in Him when your emotions are doing the exact opposite of drawing you in.

The most comforting revelation for me in this season is that God isn’t asking me to hide any of my thoughts or feelings from Him. He’s not asking me to come to Him only once I have managed to get my emotions in order. He’s not waiting for me to edit myself into something more acceptable before I pray. He’s not intimidated by my feelings of disappointment and anger, and He’s not threatened by the fact that the expression of my feelings are sometimes messy. This truth has changed the way I’ve been thinking about intimacy with God, because I’m realising more and more that intimacy can’t be built on performance. You can’t have real closeness with God if you’re constantly bringing Him the cleaned-up version of your heart while hiding the actual state of it. There’s no point performing emotional composure before the One who already sees the whole thing anyway. He knows where it hurts and what’s disappointed you. He knows the thoughts you’ve been trying not to say out loud. He knows where your heart is struggling to make peace with Him. So what would be the point in pretending?

For me, this season has looked like learning how to worship while angry, and I don’t mean putting on worship as an act or forcing myself through a song. I mean learning how to offer God something real in the middle of unresolved pain. Learning how to stand before Him and say, “I’m still hurt, still have questions, and some things still don’t make sense to me, but I’m still here.” That kind of worship feels very different from the worship that comes easily in lighter seasons. It has a different weight to it and is not always triumphant-sounding or full of joy. Sometimes it sounds like lament. Sometimes it sounds like tears. Sometimes it sounds like silence that is refusing to walk away. I’m also realising that there’s a cost to that kind of worship, because it’s not born out of comfort; it’s born out of decision. It is the kind of worship that says, “I’m not bringing You a performance. I’m bringing You my actual heart.” And I guess that this is what worship in every season really means. It doesn’t mean every season feels lovely, and it doesn’t mean faithful people move through all seasons with the same emotional tone. Some seasons are soft, sweet, and full of ease, while some are heavy and disorienting. But every season can still be surrendered and brought before God honestly. That’s why I am so grateful in this season for the kind of God He is. I’m grateful that He doesn’t only receive me when I’m feeling strong, joyful, and emotionally regulated. I’m grateful that He doesn’t just welcome me when I am composed and then push me away when I am struggling. I’m grateful that He’s not the kind of God who says, “Come back when you’ve calmed down, come back when you’re less disappointed, come back when your emotions are less inconvenient.” Now this also doesn’t mean every feeling I have is right in its conclusions, but it does mean I don’t have to hide or pretend and it means I can bring the whole thing into His presence and trust that honesty is safer there than performance could ever be.

At the same time, I’m also learning why the second part of the verse matters so much. “Be angry and do not sin” isn’t just permission to feel; it’s instruction on how to feel without letting that feeling master you. Because anger may not be sin in itself, but it can become a doorway into sin if it’s handled incorrectly. Hurt can become hardness, disappointment can become mistrust, confusion can become accusation, and anger can become bitterness if it’s held too tightly and carried too long without surrender. So the lesson for me hasn’t been that anger is harmless; it’s been that anger must be brought to God before it starts shaping me in ways that are destructive. The danger isn’t in me admitting that I’m angry. It’s in refusing to bring that anger honestly into God’s presence and instead allowing it to settle into the deeper places of my heart until it becomes coldness, resentment, or distance.

I say all that to say this; one of the many lessons of this season that I’m truly grateful for is that anger isn’t the end of intimacy with God, and it doesn’t have to be the enemy of worship. I’m learning that staying connected to the Vine doesn’t mean never feeling upset with God; it means refusing to let my upset become separation. It means learning how to remain, how to bring the truth, how to worship without pretending, how to lament without drifting, and how to trust that God is secure enough to receive the full weight of my humanity. I’m learning that my worship isn’t only accepted when it comes wrapped in joy or when I’m emotionally regulated, but also when it comes through a heavy heart, through disappointment, and through questions that are not fully resolved, because what makes it acceptable is not the neatness of my emotions but the honesty of my surrender. And maybe that is part of what grace looks like in a season like this. Not me getting everything right emotionally, not me presenting a composed version of myself to God, not me rushing myself out of pain so I can look and sound more spiritual, but me bringing the whole truth of where I am and finding that He is still there. Still teaching me that I don’t need to run from Him with my anger, because I can bring it to Him and learn, even here, what it means to remain.

P, xo