Not the time to stay mad at God

Do Not Hold Any Grudges Against the Lord

by Michael Bradley


Due to the very trying times we are now living in with most of the world economies still basically in bad recessions, I thought I would do this article for some of you who may really be battling with the Lord on some of the real heavy adversity that may have just struck you and/or your family.

In our article titled, “Trials and Tribulations – The Testing of Your Faith,” we give you all of the main reasons and all of the main verses from the Bible as to why every single one of us will have to face and battle a certain amount of adversity in this life – with absolutely no exceptions to this cold, hard fact and reality.

If by chance you have come across this article before that one, you might want to read that article after you read this one, as this will really help in giving you a proper understanding as to why even God Himself has to allow a certain amount of trials and tribulations to occur in our lives.

In this article, I just want to concentrate on one major point that will occur to many of us when we are faced with some of these heavier trials. And that point is there will come a time when you will have to decide if you are still going to continue to stay the course with God and continue to walk with Him on the divine path that He has set up for your life – or if you are going to continue to stay mad at God and from there, let a major grudge form out against you and Him as a result of the severe adversity that has just struck you.

As we all know, some Christians when faced with a heavier type of trial, will initially get very mad at God. They will ask Him – “How could you possibly do this to me? Where was my protection? I have been loving You and serving You all of these years, and then all of a sudden you let a heavy torpedo like this come ripping through my life? How could You possibly allow something this evil and this bad to come against me like this? You could have easily stopped it but you didn’t. Why?”
As we have said before, it is very easy to have high levels of faith and trust in the Lord when everything is going good and great, but let a heavier type of storm cloud come ripping through someone’s life and then all of a sudden their high levels of faith and trust in the Lord can take a major nosedive.

For many, their initial reaction will be one of major anger and possibly rage. You know God has the power and the ability to stop any kind of bad and evil thing from coming against you, but now all of a sudden you are stuck with having to deal with the reality as to why God would allow something like this to come against you in the first place, especially if you are walking in a good, full surrender with Him and you are walking in His perfect plan and destiny for your life.

How do you keep from getting mad at God when:

You have just lost your job, your house and your entire life’s savings
Your 6 year old child has just been abducted and killed by a sexual predator
Your spouse has just been killed by a drunk driver
Your mother has been left totally paralyzed from a bad car accident
You have just lost your marriage due to the infidelity of your partner who you had been married to for 30 years

I could go on and on with some of the heavier type of adversity that could strike anyone of us at anytime due to the Adamic curse that is still in full operation on this earth. As we all know, it is only by the grace, mercy and protection of God that more of us do not get these types of heavier trials coming into our lives.
But the cold, hard reality is this:

A certain amount of people, both Christians as well as unbelievers, are going to get some of this heavier type of adversity coming into their lives. As Christians, we then have to get a real grip on this when one of these do come our way, and make a conscious decision one way or the other as to whether or not we are going to let this trial affect our personal relationship with the Lord and with what He is doing with our lives in the perfect plan and destiny that He still has set up for us.

Some Christians will not get mad at God. They will take it all in stride. They will not lose their faith or their personal relationship with God, and they will just keep on moving forward with God in full control of their lives.

However, there will be other Christians who will not have this type of response to the severe tragedy that has just struck them. They will start wrestling with God. They will get mad and furious at Him for allowing this kind of tragedy to come into their lives in the first place.

For many who will have this second kind of response, I actually think God will have no problems with that kind of response at the onset due to the initial trauma of the event. For many, it will be an initial, knee-jerk reaction. Our emotions will get the better of us for a time and in those emotions will be major anger at God for allowing this tragedy to come into our lives in the first place.

However, what you will find is that you will not be able to stay mad at God forever. You will find that you will be wallowing in too much negative energy and this negative energy will start to affect both your thinking and your physical health.

You will find sooner or later after all of the wrestling you have done with God that you will come to a point where you will have to make up your mind one way or the other. Do I continue to stay mad at God and from there, let a real, live grudge form out between Him and me and then walk away from Him? Or do I let it go, continue to fully trust God with my life, and get back in the saddle again and keep moving forward in the divine destiny that God has already set up for my life?

Sooner or later you will have to make that very fateful decision, as you will not be able to stay on the fence post forever with the Lord.

At the time I am writing up this article, I am 56 years of age. Over the years, I have watched how different Christians have handled the heavier types of adversity that have come into their lives.

On the one side, you had the Christians who quickly got over the trauma of the event and they chose to stay close to the Lord and not get mad at Him and pull away from Him. They chose to believe that God was going to take care of this trial for them and turn it around and make something good come out of it, even though they had no idea as to how God was going to do that for them.

Then you had others who got so mad at God, they could not get over it. They knew God had the power and the ability to stop the trial from coming in on them in the first place, and they thus could not accept the fact that He actually allowed it to hit them. As a result, not only did they choose to get mad at God, but they chose to continue to stay mad at Him.


From there, I watched how “grudges” would form out against God. And once that deep grudge would form out against God, these people would then start to pull completely away from Him.

They would stop going to church. They would no longer pray or talk to God. If you tried to talk to them about God, they wanted no part of the conversation. Then over a period of years, I saw how God would chase after these people trying to get them to come back to Him. Jesus has already told us in His Word that a good shepherd will always go after a single sheep that has strayed.

But no matter how hard and how heavy God would chase after these people, they still kept turning Him down again and again, as they could never get over that bad and intense grudge they were holding against Him. That is why I have decided to put the word “grudge” in the title of this article, as this grudge ended up forming out a severe block and shield between these people and God.

And then over the years as a result of pulling away from God and ignoring His strivings to try and get them back, many of them lost their good marriages, their good paying jobs, and from there, their mental state just continued to get worse.
They became very unhappy and were depressed all of the time. And not only were they still mad and furious at God, but they became mad and bitter at the rest of the world as well, including with some of their own close friends and family members. Many of them ended up on anti-depressants because they lost all of their joy and zest for living since they pulled away and disconnected from the one Person who could give them that joy and zest for living – the Lord Himself.

I learned that these grudges, if not dealt with and pulled out within a reasonable period of time, could form out an actual stronghold. And once that stronghold formed out in that person’s mind and thinking, that was when they lost all desire to want to draw close to the Lord again.

To those of you who have been hit with a real severe torpedo shot, especially with the times we are now living in, let me give you 13 very important verses so you can see how important it is that you never let these kinds of grudges form out between you and God and from there, start to cause you to want to pull away from Him.

Again, if you are having some intense wrestling matches with the Lord over a severe tragedy that may have just struck you, that is alright. I believe God will have no problems with that kind of initial reaction at the onset.

But sooner or later, you will find yourself getting tired of staying in that kind of intense, wrestling match with the Lord. It will start to drain you and from there, it can then start to affect both your mental and physical health. You can only stay in these kinds of intense, wrestling matches for a certain period of time with the Lord before they start to wear you out both mentally and physically.

After that, you will come to realize that you will have to get off of the fence post and make a decision one way or the other. Are you going to get back in the saddle again and stay the course with the Lord, letting Him still have full control of your life and allowing Him to continue to lead you on the divine destiny that He still has set up for your life?

Or are you going to let your anger and wrath get the better of you, and from there, let a nasty grudge form out between you and the Lord, thereby preventing you from wanting to stay close to Him and continue on in your walk with Him? Sooner or later, you will have to make that decision.

To help you with this, here are 13 very good verses that are all going to tell you something very specific. I will first list out these verses, and then I will point out to you what they are trying to tell us, as God has set up a little pattern in each one of these verses. Here they are:

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” (James 4:8)

For thus says the Lord God to the House of Israel: “Seek Me and live … Seek the Lord and live …” (Amos 5:4,6)

“Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face evermore!” (1 Chronicles 16:11)

“And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)

“… and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deuteronomy 4:29)

“Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord! Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with the whole heart!” (Psalm 119:1)

“For it is time to seek the Lord, till He comes and rains righteousness on you.” (Hosea 10:12)

“With my soul I have desired You in the night, yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early …” (Isaiah 26:9)

“Then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul …” (2 Chronicles 15:12)

“If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.” (1 Chronicles 28:9)

“O God, you are my God; early I will seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1)

“As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 42:1)

“… and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6)
Here is the little pattern that God has set up in each one of these verses. If you will notice in each one of them, God wants you to be the one who will seek after Him. He wants us to be the ones who will initiate making direct contact with Him. In each one of these verses, it says we are to be the ones to seek after God. And if we do, then He will let us find Him.

God can obviously initiate the action with us anytime that He will want to do so. But with the way He is wording these specific verses, you can tell that He is letting all of us know that He wants us to initiate making direct contact with Him.

The reason I am listing these verses in this article is to show you the reverse can also occur off of these verses. Notice in verse #10 that it says if you forsake God, that He will cast you off forever.

If you decide to get mad at God and start holding a grudge against Him, then you are going to pull away from Him. And if you start to pull away from the Lord, then you will not be making any attempt to make any kind of direct contact with Him like the above verses are telling us to do. And if you stop trying to make direct contact with God, then you could be in danger of God pulling back on you, as these verses are telling us that God wants us to be the ones to make the attempt to make direct contact with Him.

Again, I believe God will chase after you for awhile, but where you could get yourself in trouble is off of the verse where the Holy Spirit will not strive after a man forever. If you keep ignoring God and all of His strivings to try and get you back, then He could decide to quit chasing after you. And if He does, then you will be left to wallow in your own self-pity, misery, depression and unhappiness. And that is not a place you want to be in, either with yourself or in your own personal relationship with the Lord.

Life is way too short to get worked into that kind of a bad, negative, mental state. Sooner or later, you will be leaving this life and entering into the most glorious place imaginable. And when you do, all of the trauma, pain and hurt of the tragedy you have been going through will all fall off of you like a heavy sack of potatoes. It will all be gone the second you enter into heaven. And then heaven will be for all of eternity – this life down here is just for the blink of an eye compared to the eternal time frame that is operating up in heaven.

If you are one of the ones who are on this fence post with the Lord as a result of some kind of severe tragedy hitting you full force, the best advice I can give you is to make a conscious, free-will decision that you will not pull away from the Lord, that you will continue to stay on the path that He has set up for your life, and that you will not give up.

Even if your wounded and hurt emotions will not be lining up with this kind of a statement with the Lord – just override those hurt and wounded emotions for now and just give God a good, conscious, free-will decision with your mind that you will continue to stay the course with Him. That is all He will be looking for at this point.

From there, over a period of time, the Holy Spirit will then move into your damaged and wounded emotions and He will then start to heal them up so you do not let any type of bitterness and anger start to get the better of you. You can do this very early on in a severe tragedy if you just give God the green light that you will stay the course with Him and that you will not pull away from Him no matter what happens from this point on.

Make this decision based upon your head knowledge of God and the Bible. Do not make this decision based upon your wounded and hurt emotions. The people who end up pulling away from God are doing this because of their damaged and wounded emotions. They are not relying upon their good head knowledge of God and the Bible.

That is why the Bible tells us that God’s people will perish and go into captivity without having knowledge. Again, here are these two vitally important verses on this issue:

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6)

“Therefore My people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge …” (Isaiah 5:13)

When people pull away from God as a result of letting a grudge form out against Him, they are in actuality going into captivity just like this second verse is telling us. That is why you can never, ever lose your faith, your belief and your trust in the Lord – no matter what life, hell or the devil may try and throw your way.

This is why it is extremely important that all Christians get built up in the Word of God, so they will have all of this head knowledge to fall back on when any type of severe adversity does strike them in this life.

CONCLUSION

Now, more than ever, we all need God in our lives. This is not the time to stay mad at God and continue to hold any type of grudges against Him.

And not only do we need God in our lives, but we need Him controlling it and running it, as most of the economies across the world still have not really rebounded and no one still knows for sure if and when they will. People are losing their houses, their jobs, and all of their life savings – and now, more than ever, we need God’s help to get through these very trying times.

For those of you who are tuned into the prophetic with the Lord, you can smell this a mile away that there are forces working behind the scenes trying to arrange a one world government. The Bible tells us that a real, live antichrist will eventually be coming to rule this entire world. And if he will be coming to rule this entire world, then a world stage and platform is going to be built for him so he will be able to do this.

Again, to those of you who are tuned into the prophetic with the Lord, you can “see” and “smell” this occurring behind the scenes, not only with our own government at this time, but with some of the other governments across the world as well, especially with some of the governments in Europe.

Again, this is why it is not the time to get mad at God and pull away from Him. If we are living in the end times as prophesied out of the Bible, then we are all going to have to stay very close to the Lord and be guided by His Holy Spirit so He can help us navigate and get through some of these rougher waters until the rapture occurs and we are finally taken off of this earth.

Remember – life is way too short to continue to stay mad at God, and from there, let an actual grudge form out between you and Him. No matter what has been thrown your way by way of a bad trial, just know that there are reasons for everything and if God will not give you those reasons down here, you will more than likely be told what they were once you get up into heaven.

Until then, do not let any type of adversity, especially any type of severe adversity, cause you to pull away from the Lord and totally disconnect with Him.
Look what happened to both Paul and Job. Both went through very severe adversity and both ended up staying true, loyal and faithful to the Lord. Neither one of them pulled away from the Lord. Job had to have one of the worst trials of all time and he refused to let it pull him away from the Lord. We have to do the exact same thing if we ever have any of these heavier trials come our way in this life.

I will leave you with one last verse that really says it all when dealing with the storm clouds of this life. Here it is:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35)

This is the type of verse you have to ground on and believe in if you are ever forced to have to deal with a heavier type of storm cloud in this life. We can never, ever let anything separate us from our Lord and Savior. Just remember the extreme, barbaric death Jesus went through to get us back to Himself and His Father. If Jesus was willing to die for us, then we should be willing to die for Him if circumstances should ever arise where that may have to occur.

Again, we ask that you go to our other article titled, “Trials and Tribulations – The Testing of Your Faith,” if you would like to see why God has to allow a certain amount of trials and tribulations to come everyone’s way in this life from time to time. In this article we give you all of the main Bible verses on this topic, along with all of the main reasons as to why every single person will have to face and engage with a certain amount of storm clouds in this life.