Is It OK To Complain To God?

The author and theologian, Eugene Peterson, once said, “Feelings can be great liars.” Undoubtedly, this is true. Feelings and emotions are unpredictable at best. But the kicker is, we all deal with them. For better or worse, they are a part of who we are. How we manage them is up to us. We all know a stoic who masks his emotions, never allowing himself to feel anything. And most of us have at least one crazy friend whose life is governed by her latest mood. Neither option is desirable.

To some degree, many of us swing from one extreme to another when managing our emotions. During times of turmoil, some of us minimize or deny our feelings entirely, pretending everything is fine, but secretly we are desperate for relief. Other times we allow the intensity of our emotions to overwhelm us, and we crumble like a cheap card table.

The Psalms of Lament offer a third option. They teach us to come before God in total transparency, laying our burdens before Him. The Psalms of Lament encourage us to speak with complete honesty before God and even complain if we need to. We can safely share our most personal thoughts with Him because he understands desperate people sometimes say desperate things.

You might cringe at the thought of complaining to God. After all, the Israelites got it big trouble for that, right? (Numbers 11) The difference is that the Israelites complained about God and their circumstances. But they never vocalized their feelings to him in prayer. There is an enormous difference.

King David is famous for praying with this kind of transparency. In Psalms 13 we find David worn out from being pursued by King Saul. God had promised David he would be king of Israel, yet David continued to wait. Meanwhile, Saul was behaving like an evil maniac and from David’s perspective he seemed to be getting away with it.

Undoubtedly, David felt like God had abandoned him. In total desperation, David prayed, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”

There are few things more frustrating than feeling overlooked, unheard, or forgotten. It ‘s hard when we experience this from other people, but it is devastating when we feel God has forgotten us. David pleads boldly to God in Psalms 13:3 saying, “Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; light up my eyes.”

In the phrase, “light up my eyes” David is asking for spiritual revelation as well as physical and emotional strength. During times of stress, it is easy for our mind and body to become weak. David asked God to sustain him spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

As David pours out his raw emotions, we see him shift from fear to faith. He says, “But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.” Psalms 13:5 David’s emotions had swung back and forth like a pendulum, but through the process of vocalizing his feelings to God his focus returned to the stability of God’s love.

The Psalms of Lament teach us that we have a safe place to vocalize our most intense emotions. We don’t have to pretend our feelings don’t exist. Even better, our emotions don’t have to dictate our life. Instead, we are free to process what we are going through with the One who can handle it.

And He can handle us.