Is it wrong to feel disappointment with God?
Almost every believer meets a stretch where prayer seems to go nowhere and the goodness of God feels like a memory rather than a fact. The question is not whether that ache is real, but what a person does with it — and whether saying it out loud to God is rebellion or is exactly what God invites.
The complaint is already in Scripture
Asaph, who wrote several of the psalms, did not keep his darkest thoughts private. One writer counts them out and refuses to soften what they imply:
F. B. HoleThis raised a whole host of questions — not about himself, but about God. He says, "Will the Lord cast off forever? Will the Lord be favourable no more? Is His mercy completely gone forever? Does His promise fail forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" Here are six questions, all casting reflections upon God. Here Asaph actually doubts the Lord. There may be someone here who has had an experience of that kind. You have felt you would almost doubt God Himself.
Feeling the sorrow is not unbelief
Grief itself is not treated as a fault. Jeremiah's book of Lamentations is a long wail over a ruined city, and one writer takes that as proof that a believer is meant to feel things:
The Bible TreasuryIt is not surprising, then, that we should feel. Jeremiah feeling the sorrows was a fit vessel to wail over Jerusalem, as expressed in Lamentations. If there is not the energy of faith, there is not the support of faith. The first may fail, but the dependence of faith cannot be taken from us.
Bring the doubt to God rather than around Him
The safest place to put a disappointed heart is in front of God — including the parts of it you would be embarrassed to say aloud:
Frederick W GrantBut it is beautiful to see how Abraham flings it all out — doubt and all, casts it down before God. "Pour out your hearts before Him," says the Psalmist; "Be anxious for nothing," adds the apostle; "but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." In these very requests, what a multitude of things unworthy of Him! But He who has known them in the heart already would have us pour them out in His presence, and oh the relief that the heart gets so! How many of these workings of unbelief do the psalms give us! But they are poured out before God, and the soul stills itself in that blessed presence as nowhere else can it be stilled.
Notice the emphasis differs among commentators: one names Asaph's questions as reflections cast on God, another calls such outpourings "workings of unbelief" that God still wants to hear. Both agree the words belong in His presence, not bottled up.
Where it turns harmful
Sorrow becomes dangerous when it settles in and starts feeding on itself. The same writer who described Asaph's six questions also names what keeps producing them:
F. B. HoleTo be continually brooding over one's failures and trouble and weakness only breeds further weakness and failure; and moreover, since the tendency to this kind of thing is nearly always coupled with a legal mind, it inevitably generates loss of simple confidence in God.
And when the questioning reaches God's character itself, the psalm's own pause-word becomes a warning: "It is about time we did stop when we can actually question the mercy and graciousness of God." (F. B. Hole)
The turn: from what you feel to what God has done
Psalm 77 records the moment the mood breaks — the writer calls his despair his own infirmity and starts remembering God's past acts instead. One commentator draws the contrast sharply:
A. PridhamIt is the infirmity of a believer to be thinking of himself, and drawing false inferences (for all such inferences are necessarily erroneous) from what he sees or feels, as to the light in which he is seen and valued by God. It is his strength, on the other hand, to remember the right hand of the Most High — to meditate upon the changeless truth and mercy of that God who has committed Himself in holiness to the believing sinner's sure salvation.
Hope when you still cannot see Him
The psalmist finally addresses his own heart. Hope is commanded before the darkness lifts, and it rests on God's nature rather than on evidence:
Numerical Bible NotesThe soul rebukes its own despondency: "Why are you cast down, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God." Yes; here is what is permanent, what is eternal: hope in God, even though you cannot find Him; though clouds are round about Him, and you cannot come to His seat; though His ways are in deepest mystery; though you could not even find a promise you could claim without doubt. He Himself is promise!
Summary
- Felt. Sorrow is not sin; a faith that feels nothing has no support to draw on when trouble comes.
- Spoken. Say it to God, doubt and all — the psalms are full of such outpourings, and the heart is stilled nowhere else.
- Stopped. Brooding on your own weakness breeds more of it and quietly drains away simple confidence in God.
- Turned. Judging by what you see and feel yields false conclusions; remembering what God has already done restores the true one.
- Hoped. Hope in God even while He stays hidden — He Himself is the promise you cannot yet read.