Complaining about God vs. Complaining to God

God Wants to Hear Your Hard Questions

When things are difficult and we're struggling with why questions, we might be tempted to overspiritualize. If we distance ourselves from God instead of asking him the hard questions, we might think, "Oh, I just need to pull myself up by my bootstraps and just deal with it." But I don't think that's a healthy way to go about it.

We see throughout the Scriptures that believers ask God hard questions about things they're going through in their lives, and in the process they find God to be a refuge. That's what God wants us to do. Peter tells us to cast our anxieties upon God because he cares for us. So the same God who tells us to be anxious for nothing, tells us to put our anxieties on him.

So the same God who tells us to be anxious for nothing, tells us to put our anxieties on him.

However, there should be a marked difference between complaining about God and complaining to God. When you complain about God, you are stiffening your neck against God and questioning his character. Complaining to God shows that we realize who God is and we come to him and pour out our hearts before him, and then we trust him to act and to work—maybe by resolving the situation or by giving us the grace to stand amidst the difficulty.

Chasing Contentment

Erik Raymond

In this immensely practical and encouraging book, Erik Raymond establishes what contentment is and how to learn it, teaching us to trust in the God who keeps his promises rather than our changing circumstances.

As Christians who are suffering, we should be diving into God instead of retreating from God, asking him questions and believing that he is sufficient to answer them and deal with our needs. We should do this without complaining about God.

Erik Raymond is the senior pastor at Redeemer Fellowship Church in Watertown, Massachusetts. He is the author of Chasing Contentment: Trusting God in a Discontented Age and a frequent contributor to many websites and periodicals. He blogs regularly at Ordinary Pastor, hosted by the Gospel Coalition.