Several years ago a church changed their street message board to say “God is not made at you”. Soon after, they were inundated with angry phone calls for some time. Apparently, many people believe that God is mad at them and feel the need to vent, to ask why, to affirm their stance that God is indeed vengeful. Do you wonder, Is God mad at me?
Rest at ease, He is not. How do I know that? I can read it in every book of the Bible. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal live. (John 3:16) A vengeful God does not sacrifice His most precious Son. A loving God does. Why? Because He wants to ensure a way for us to be with Him. Jesus took on the sins of the world, including ours, and covered them with His own blood. All we need to do is accept that gift of sacrifice with humble thanks. His love for us is outrageous and never ending.
But what about the Old Testament God who looks pretty vengeful? God told His people what they needed to do to stay safe within His protection and grace, but over and over again they deserted Him to worship idols. His anger was against their actions, not the people themselves. He repeatedly told them to trust in Him and He would cover them with His mercy. Most of the time, they did not.
Do you believe that God is mad at you because bad things happen to you? Bad things happen to everyone, even when we know how much God loves us. He never said we wouldn’t have problems. He said if we trust Him, He’ll be with us and work things out. It’s the trust part that trips up most people. We don’t know how to take our hands off to let God be in control. Most of the time, we doubt that He will do anything for us. It’s a real test of our faith. If we really believe, if we really trust that God is who He said He is, we can relax and watch Him do what we could not.
Bad things may happen because we’re not even trying to trust Him so we just make stupid decisions. We suffer the consequences of what we got ourselves into. Even then, all we have to do is tell God how sorry we are for what we’ve done and ask His forgiveness. He will always forgive. It’s His nature.
No, God is not mad at you. He loves you very, very much. He’s a great, good God who wants to give you every blessing in heaven. All you have to do is receive it.