Mad At God Quotes

I avowed that I was not mad at God. In fact, I felt God's presence at that time more than I ever had. I was never angry, and that didn't make sense to many people. But I knew that God didn't do this. We as humans have free choice, and when people make bad choices, other humans suffer. It doesn't make sense, and we can ask why God didn't fix it or change it. The fact is we do not have the mind of God; as smart as we think we are, we know nothing in terms of what God knows. ~ Abby Rike

Driving my daughter to a friend's house one evening, she asked me about God.
"Why doesn't God stop bad things from happening?"
I glanced back at her in the seat. Her eyes were big, her expression pensive.
"I'm sure he could, but that would break his promise to us," I said, working the answer out. "Because he promised to give us free will, and that means that we are free to do bad things as well as good."
"But other people?"
"Other people, too. All people have free will." I worked to explain it, not just to her but to myself. "God promised not to leave us alone," I said, coming back to an idea that has often comforted me. "It doesn't mean we'll always be happy. But He will always support us."
Angel was thinking about her father and his death. I wondered if she was going to cry.
"It's okay to cry," I told her.
"I'm not going to cry," she said. "I have a lot of questions about God. But I can't think about them now."
"You can always ask."
"I know."
"Are you angry with God?"
"No. He didn't do this to us."
"It's okay to be mad at God," I admitted finally--to myself. "He can handle it. ~ Taya Kyle

We're not mad at God, just like atheists don't hate Santa or Unicorns, they're just not there! ~ Hemant Mehta

Yes, I was mad at God because of the cancer diagnosis. I thought I should have been protected because of the work I do in the world. ~ Debbie Ford

I still can't believe that someone as hot as you has validation issues but I also know that being a very sensitive person on this planet is painful and some of us are built like sieves, or have holes where any external validation just pours right through and we never get full, and I also know it's ultimately an inside job anyway and no amount of external validation will ever be enough (though damn it can feel good in the moment, and it sort of makes me mad at god, actually, like, okay god, you built me like this so teach me how to validate myself in a way that feels as good as when a boy does it or the Internet does it, because there is always a cost when a boy does it or when the Internet does it): a love story. ~ Melissa Broder

It's ok to be mad at god when your life is miserable. It's alright to ask for his help and to be upset when he does not answer you ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

…we saw a lion take down a gazelle – I mean at close quarters. It quite took my breath away. It was as if something happened to the gazelle at the moment of capture, something awe-inspiringly terrible and wonderful at the same time – as if, in knowing the gazelle was to die a dreadful death, ripped apart by the jaws of the lion, the Creator had given the captive a reprieve by taking her soul before she was dead, so that no pain would be felt because the essence had gone already… And I saw the eyes of the gazelle again in France [during WWI], and it struck me that perhaps a heartsick God had looked down and taken up a soul, leaving only the shell of a man." [of those who developed PTSD and/or "war neuroses"] ~ Jacqueline Winspear

To our three levels of complicating alienation we must add the fundamental distinction or break between God and humankind, between Creator and creature. That "division" is no tragedy, but part and parcel of our identity and God's grandeur. It must be accounted for in the mystery of God, who reveals himself to us as we can bear it: revelation invariably involves concealment, since God is God and we are not. The communion that he forges with us remains a tantalizing "mystery" that leads us to know more and more of him, but never in completion - and at this, we wonder! As Kallistos Ware puts it, where knowledge of God is concerned, "The eyes are closed - but they are also opened" (The Orthodox Way, p. 15). ~ Edith M. Humphrey

The Qur'ān began by criticizing two closely related aspects of that society: the polytheism or multiplicity of gods which was symptomatic of the segmentation of society, and the gross socioeconomic disparities that equally rested on and perpetuated a pernicious divisiveness of mankind. The two are obverse and converse of the same coin: only God can ensure the essential unity of the human race as His creation, His subjects, and those responsible finally to Him alone. The economic disparities were most persistently criticized, because they were the most difficult to remedy and were at the hear of social discord - although tribal rivalries, with their multiple entanglements of alliance, enmity, and vengeance, were no less serious, and the welding of these tribes into a political unity was an imperative need. Certain abuses of girls, orphans, and women, and the institution of slavery demanded desperate reform. ~ Fazlur Rahman

And now she finally understands what she has always observed on people's faces when they are at the seaside. Years ago, ... she would notice how people's faces turned slightly upward when they stared at the sea, as if they were straining to see a trace of God or were hearing the silent humming of the universe; she would notice how, at the beach, people's faces became soft and wistful, reminding her of the expressions on the faces of the sweet old dogs that roamed the streets of Bombay. As if they were all sniffing the salty air for transcendence, for something that would allow them to escape the familiar prisons of their own skin. In the temples and the shrines, their heads were bowed and their faces small, fearful, and respectful, shrunk into insignificance by the ritualized chanting of the priests. But when they gazed at the sea, people held their heads up, and their faces became curious and open, as if they were searching for something that linked them to the sun and the stars, looking for that something they knew would linger long after the wind had erased their footprints in the dust. Land could be bought, sold, owned, divided, claimed, trampled, and fought over. The land was stained permanently with pools of blood; it bulged and swelled under the outlines of the countless millions buried under it. But the sea was unspoiled and eternal and seemingly beyond human claim. Its waters rose and swallowed up the scarlet shame of spilled blood. ~ Thrity Umrigar

I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity today, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world, and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps, by God's grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. ~ C.S. Lewis

Those who defy Him, who break His laws, who have no concern for His glory, but who live their lives as though He existed not, must not suppose that, when at the last they shall cry to Him for mercy, He will alter His will, revoke His word, and rescind His awful threatenings. No, He has declared, "Therefore will I also deal in fury: Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in Mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them" (Eze 8:18). God will not deny Himself to gratify their lusts. God is holy, unchangingly so. Therefore God hates sin, eternally hates it. Hence the eternality of the punishment of all who die in their sins. ~ Arthur W. Pink

Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don't know what they are. Coincidence, if you'll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion. ~ Roberto Bolano

The kingdom of the world is becoming the kingdom of God, and it doesn't depend upon our acknowledgement or faithfulness to it within our highly-charged present. It's coming anyway. It is and was and is to come. We have the privilege of watching and praying and noticing in the glorious meantime, especially in what appear to be the unlikeliest of corners. To reimagine now is our work and our pleasure. Look harder. It is at hand. ~ David Dark

The claim of fine tuning is subjective. As I stated before, no measurement in physics is perfect. The amount of precision we demand can be increased or decreased at our whim. We could have an approximate measurement that has a huge margin of error and call it finely-tuned if we so desire. Theists, in particular, have a lot of such desire. They so badly want God to be an indispensable part of our universe's creation, so they see finely-tuned constants.
They also tend to sweep under the rug the following fact: the vast majority of our universe is hostile to life, and they fail to consider that another hand in the proverbial deck might yield a better universe than ours, one teaming with life on every planet throughout the cosmos. ~ G.M. Jackson

The nearest thing we have to a defence against [the gods] (but there is no real defence) is to be very wide awake and sober and hard at work, to hear no music, never to look at earth or sky, and (above all) to love no one. ~ C.S. Lewis

The industrial age has transformed our material well-being, but these improvements have come at the cost of our beliefs: belief in our special place in the universe; belief in an omnipresent god; belief in country and community; belief in monogamy and marriage, and belief in our values. What, then, holds up the foundations of society when these beliefs finally fall away? ~ Sean A. Culey

The book which the reader has under his eye at this moment is, from one end to the other, as a whole and in detail, whatever may be its intermittences, exceptions and faults, the march from evil to good, from the unjust to the just, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from rottenness to life, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. Point of departure: matter; point of arrival: the soul. The hydra at the beginning, the angel at the end. ~ Victor Hugo

Salvation is a word for the divine spaciousness that comes to human beings in all the tight places where their lives are at risk, regardless of how they got there or whether they know God's name. Sometimes it comes as an extended human hand and sometimes as a bolt from the blue, but either way it opens a door in what looked for all the world like a wall. This is the way of life, and God alone knows how it works. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This confusion became more and more intense. As he went down the stairs, he even stopped short, two or three times, as though suddenly struck by some thought. When he was in the street he cried out, "Oh, God, how loathsome it all is! and can I, can I possibly… . No, it's nonsense, it's rubbish!" he added resolutely. "And how could such an atrocious thing come into my head? What filthy things my heart is capable of. Yes, filthy above all, disgusting, loathsome, loathsome! - and for a whole month I've been… ." But no words, no exclamations, could express his agitation. The feeling of intense repulsion, which had begun to oppress and torture his heart while he was on his way to the old woman, had by now reached such a pitch and had taken such a definite form that he did not know what to do with himself to escape from his wretchedness. He walked along the pavement like a drunken man, regardless of the passers-by, and jostling against them, and only came to his senses when he was in the next street. Looking round, he noticed that he was standing close to a tavern which was entered by steps leading from the pavement to the basement. At that instant two drunken men came out at the door, and abusing and supporting one another, they mounted the steps. Without stopping to think, Raskolnikov went down the steps at once. Till that moment he had never been into a tavern, but now he felt giddy and was tormented by a burning thirst. He longed for ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Why pray for the Kingdom of God to come unless you have in your heart a desire and a willingness to aid in its establishment? Praying for His will to be done and then not trying to live it, gives you a negative answer at once. You would not grant something to a child who showed that attitude towards a request he is making of you. If we pray for the success of some cause or enterprise, manifestly we are in sympathy with it. It is the height of disloyalty to pray for God's will to be done, and then fail to conform our lives to that will. ~ David O. McKay

O God," he thought, "what a demanding job I've chosen! Day in, day out on the road. The stresses of trade are much greater than the work going on at head office, and, in addition to that, I have to deal with the problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human relationships which never come from the heart. To hell with it all! ~ Franz Kafka

A man's most glorious actions will at last be found to be but glorious sins, if he hath made himself, and not the glory of God, the end of those actions. ~ Thomas Brooks

I look at him and my body reacts in a way that it never has before, even in the throes of passion. I look at him and I start aching so deep inside it takes all I can to think, to breathe, to speak. He's like the brightest flame and it takes everything in me to resist its call.

I know that if I give in, I'll get burned so deeply, there might be nothing left once I come out the other side.

But, god, I want to step into that flame. ~ D.L. Hess

No, my son. Not she. I. I lay on the rocks and the sun gnawed at my flesh. I pleaded for my life with a useless stump of a tongue. I watched your precious Cveti close up my severed breasts in a silver box. And I listened to the soldiers praise her false name - Ghyfran! Ghyfran! The whore who betrayed her god for power. This body is new, but I am Ragnhild, first of my name, and I am the plague which will burn through the marrow of the Anointed City. ~ Catherynne M Valente

The Bible is not a witness to the best people making it up to God; it's a witness to God making it down to the worst people. Far from being a book full of moral heroes whom we are commanded to emulate, what we discover is that the so-called heroes in the Bible are not really heroes at all. They fall and fail; they make huge mistakes; they get afraid; they're selfish, deceptive, egotistical, and unreliable. The Bible is one long story of God meeting our rebellion with His rescue, our sin with His salvation, our guilt with His grace, our badness with His goodness. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

The girl looked at Patty with large, sad-looking eyes. She finally let out a long sigh. "Oh boy," she said. "Well. I'm sorry I said that shit about you. That stuff about you."
Patty said, "You're sixteen."
"Fifteen."
"You're fifteen, I'm the adult, and I'm the one who did something wrong."
Patty was startled to see that tears had begun to slip down the girl's face, and the girl wiped them with her hand. "I'm just tired," Lila said. "I'm just so tired."
....(Patty:) I can get you into a school, and you can go."
The girl put her head down on her arms on Patty's desk. Her shoulders shook. In a few minutes she said, looking up, her face wet. "I'm sorry. But when someone's nice to me--Oh God, it just kills me."
...Patty handed her a tissue. "It's okay. I'm telling you. It is all going to be okay. ~ Elizabeth Strout

Maps. I was less clueless about the basics of English, though I didn't realise at the time that I was assuming that English grammar was the same as the Latin grammar I had been taught so well. (I remember that the first week I was there, a boy asked me during prep whether ager was second or third declension and I was able to tell him without pausing for thought that ager - a field - was second declension, so it went like annus, but that it dropped the "e," as opposed to agger - a rampart - which was third declension, and retained the "e." "My God," I thought as he walked away, "Captain Lancaster did a good job." My next thought was, "Lucky the boy didn't ask me what a rampart was. ... ") But given that I was teaching ten-year-olds, Geoffrey Tolson's advice to "stay a page ahead" seemed perfectly sound. So I had no reason to believe, as I strode purposefully into the classroom to teach Form III their first history ~ John Cleese

I never wanted to be you. I saw what the weight of being the heir did to you. And I'm not talking about what our mother did to you. I'm talking about the mantle of responsibility thrust upon you. Hell at fourteen you practically ran the castle. God knows our father never did. And all Mother wanted to do was throw one grand party after another." /"Well, somebody had to take responsibility. The place was falling apart."

. ~ Magda Alexander

The only true One God is the one who picks no sides, who belongs to everything, who doesn't demand loyalty or fear; in fact, who doesn't demand anything at all. Because the Ekam just exists; and His existence allows for the existence of all else. ~ Amish Tripathi

God willing, we shall come to a stage where the world looks at the Palestinian question, and Palestinian rights on Palestinian national soil, as well as the questions of the occupied Syrian and Lebanese territories. These are the bases on which peace will be built. ~ King Hussein I

Remember that time we got snowed in at school? Everyone had to wait for their parents to get them, but our parents didn't come."
"God," I said, "I'd forgotten. Why can't I remember any of this stuff without being reminded?"
"School bus driver had to take us home eventually. We were the only two kids on the bus."
"I can picture us," I said, "sitting next to each other on that backseat. It's such a sad scene, really."
I felt him look at me. "I don't think so. I never thought of it as sad."
"But Cameron, every single kid in the school got picked up by their parents except us!" I was laughing now at the tragic ridiculousness of it. "It was pathetic!"
"We head each other. I never needed anyone else. That's the difference between you and me," he said. "You need all these people around you. Your friends, your boyfriend, everyone. Every single person has to like you. I only ever needed that one person. Only ever needed you."
"Not everyone has to like me," I protested. "It's just..." We'd arrived at my house. "Imagine if you'd believed I died," I said. "Trust me, you'd start to need other people. You had the luxury of always knowing I was alive, knowing where I was and what I was doing. I didn't have that, Cameron."
"I didn't think of it that way when it was happening," he said. "Didn't ever think you needed me much as I needed you."
"I did."
"I'm sorry," he said. "But I knew you'd be okay."
"How, Cameron? How did you know that?"< ~ Sara Zarr

We all need God in certain ways, you know. And I certainly fall short in a lot of categories. And it's at those times that I need much more help than most. ~ Tim Howard

Sometimes an obstacle is placed in front of us by God for the purpose of upgrading our vision and experiencing our dream at a higher level. The obstacle can only be here by permission of God, so it has to help us become what He is seeing about us. ~ Graham Cooke

My friend, I am "jealous" for you to enjoy God. I want God to be the greatest reality in your life. I want you to be more assured of His presence than any other you can see or touch. This can be your reality. This is your right as a child of God. We were destined for this kind of relationship with God, but the enemy tries to convince us that the Christian life is sacrificial at best and artificial at worst. ~ Beth Moore

Then in a moment, in that vast space of rocks and sky and scorching sun, I understood that he had not meant religious faith, not exactly. He was not urging me to become a Muslim or to believe in one interpretation of God rather than another. He knew me for what I was, an old, cold, cautious scientist. That was what I was then. And he was simply pointing out to me the first step to take. The word he had used was faith, but what he meant was belief. The first step was simple: it was to believe in belief itself. I had just taken that step. At long last I understood.

I had belief. I did not know, or for the moment care, what exactly it was I had to believe in. I only knew that belief in something was the first step away from believing in nothing, the first step away from a world which only recognised what it could count, measure, sell or buy. The people here still had that innocent power of belief: not the angry denial of other people's belief of religious fanatics, but a quiet affirmation. That was what I sensed here, in this land and in this place, which made it so different from home. It was not the clothes, not the language, not the customs, not the sense of being in another century. It was none of these. It was the pervading presence of belief.

I believed in belief. I didn't exactly feel as if I was on the road to Damascus, and I was aware I could not think straight because of the power of the sun, but now I knew what the Yemen salmon project was all ab ~ Paul Torday

I guess that is what dying must be like; to be finished and to be able to look back at the struggles of life, and know that God was your constant companion. ~ Mother Angelica

We are attempting to play God, when maybe God put us
here in the first place." Father Tomas's words by the stream came back to me. I could see his stick in the
river, the water dividing on either side. "We can only move forward with what we have been given. Negotiate
the river of life. Of time. And we've been given this," I pleaded, waving at our circle. "Family. Love. Joy. Life.
Can we not embrace it, for as long as we have it? Isn't it what we all most dearly want, deep down? ~ Lisa Tawn Bergren

The best way I can think to describe it, she said, ' is the way, when you're driving on the freeway at night how everyone can see the moon in their window. Every car on the road. Every car feels the moon is following that car, even in the other direction, right? Everyone in that entire hemisphere can see the moon and think it is there for them, is following where they go. ~ Aimee Bender

Never treat your launch team like a core group. It's not. Your launch team is a time-limited, purpose-driven team. It ends with the debriefing session following your launch. At that meeting, release the launch team members to join a ministry team of their choice. Your launch team will not stay with you over the long haul. Many church planters make the mistake of thinking that the people from their launch team (whom they have grown to love) will be the same people who will grow the church with them in the long term. That is seldom, if ever, the case.

While it's sad to see people go, it's part of God's process in growing your church. So, expect it, be prepared for it, and be thankful that you have the opportunity to serve with so many different people at different points along the journey.

Preparing a launch team to maximize your first service is first and foremost a spiritual enterprise. Pray and fast - a lot.

Don't be fooled into thinking that being a solid leader undermines the spirit of teamwork. You can lead a team, hold people accountable and ensure that things get done in a way that fosters teamwork and gives glory to God. So get ready.

show people your heart before you ask for their hand. People want to know that you care, and they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. If you can articulate your vision in a way that excites people, they'll want to be on your team.

The launch team is not a democracy. D ~ Nelson Searcy

Light itself was your first love: you paint only as a means of telling about light... Ink and catgut and paint were necessary down there, but they are also dangerous stimulants. Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only what they say about Him. ~ C.S. Lewis

God deliver me from the sin o' fornication," Spence gasped, clutching at the sheets of blood that poured from the deep gash in his head. "Have the bastards killed me? ~ Marsha Canham

Although there appears to be a deep desire to approach dating, marriage, and sex in a way that pleases God, there nevertheless seems to be a profound lack of wisdom and practical know-how. There is a sizable gap between our understanding of the gospel and our knowledge of the Scriptures on one hand and our application of that knowledge on the other. The sheer amount of confusion, heartbreak, and fear that I have witnessed at The Village Church in regard to romantic relationships and sex provides my primary motivation for writing this book. ~ Matt Chandler

Well, while you were in the bathroom, I sat down at this picnic table here in Bumblefug, Kentucky, and noticed that someone had carved that GOD HATES FAG, which, aside from being a grammatical nightmare, is absolutely ridiculous. So I'm changing it to 'God Hates Baguettes.' It's tough to disagree with that. Everybody hates baguettes. ~ John Green

If you want to understand God, then look no further than in the mirror at your home. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Our journey was to be a great enterprise of balance. My father, of course, was bringing the Word of God - which fortunately weighs nothing at all. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough-going, whole-hearted, fervent in spirit. He sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed-up in one thing - and that one thing is to please God. Whether he lives - or whether he dies; whether he has health - or whether he has sickness; whether he is rich - or whether he is poor; whether he pleases man - or whether he gives offence; whether he is thought wise - or whether he is thought foolish; whether he gets blame - or whether he gets praise; whether he gets honor, or whether he gets shame - for all this the zealous man cares nothing at all. He burns for one thing - and that one thing is to please God, and to advance God's glory. If he is consumed in the very burning - he is content. He feels that, like a lamp, he is made to burn, and if consumed in burning - he has but done the work for which God appointed him. Such a one will always find a sphere for his zeal. If he cannot preach, and work, and give money - he will cry, and sigh, and pray. Yes, if he is only a pauper, on a perpetual bed of sickness - he will make the wheels of sin around him drive heavily, by continually interceding against it. If he cannot fight in the valley with Joshua - then he will do the prayer-work of Moses, Aaron, and Hur, on the hill. (Exod. 17:9-13.) If he is cut off from working himself - he wil ~ J.C. Ryle

The process of time brings our transformation to fruition. Free yourself to live through the processes God puts you through because at the appointed time He will cause you to bear much fruit - all for purpose of glorifying Him in the world. ~ LaShawnda Jones