Talk with God. We speak openly with God so we can be known and He speaks openly with us so we can know Him. Anger is often rooted in suffering that we have endured and allowed to alter the attention of our heart from God to the pain we have. Because we do not rightly deal with this pain, offense, and suffering, our hearts become bitter and we push the anguish of our heart onto others through our anger. But it does not have to be this way. We do not have to live as though we are victims of the sin of our anger or the anger of others.
We can speak to God. We can take our hurts, our hopelessness, our confusion, our doubts, our frustrations, etc. to God. We can be confident that He listens, He cares, and He acts on our behalf. He knows rejection, loss, suffering, and pain. He understands and He invites us to bring our "stuff" to Him (Hebrews 4:15-16).
In his book, "Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy," author Mark Vroegop biblically guides us through dealing with our pain and disappointment through lament. He gives four steps to help us rightly lament regardless how big or how small the hurt. The end result allows us to find hope and deeper faith in God. Vroegop encourages us to 1) Turn. We turn to God with our pain and suffering. God invites us to cast our cares upon Him. 2) Complain. God is able to hear our pains and our complaints. Psalms is filled with descriptions about sufferings. These are not attacks on God, but they are conversations with God describing our suffering. 3) Ask. What do you want God to do? How do you want Him to work? Ask, knowing that He hears. 4) Trust. Once we turn, complain, and ask, we learn to trust in what He is doing. We trust His work, His timing, and His plan. We grow in faith because our dependence is upon Him. (This short list does not do Vroegop's book justice, but hopefully it will cause you to be curious to read through his book on lament).
Satan wants us to believe that we have been isolated and abandoned by God in suffering. God's response is that He is right here with us in the suffering and that He understands and that He has been through this all and is victorious. He knows the way and He is trustworthy. We must turn and speak to Him and allow Him to speak to us.
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