In an earlier post, I wrote in defense of sorrow. My point was that not only is it OK for a Christian to be sad, but it is actually a sign of spiritual maturity in the right circumstances. We could ask the same thing of anger. Sorrow should not be compounded with guilt, but it too often is. We are told that if we had real faith, we wouldn't be sad; but we do feel sad, and so we feel guilty at our lack of faith. Anger plays the same game. If anger is wrong, then it is a mark of immaturity and we should repent of it. If there is room for anger in our walk with God, then we should not add guilt to the burdens we already carry. Full honesty here: I've spent some time dealing with my anger towards God due to my diagnosis. What follows is not scholarly meditation. It's the real-life struggle that many of us face, but which few of us feel comfortable speaking aloud.
     Is it OK to be angry with God? The question assumes some big truths about God's involvement in our lives. Facing the tragic death of his young son, Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote his famous book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Kushner argues that God is loving and wise but not all-powerful. He is not in control of everything that happens. If that's who God is, then it is of course wrong to be angry with him when we suffer. After all, he can't do anything about it. But the God of the Bible is (as I keep explaining in these writings) loving, wise, and all-powerful. He is completely in control. Whether you believe that means he ordains the suffering we experience (see Amos 3:6 and Isaiah 45:7) or whether he has the power to intervene but chooses not to (Psalm 10:1), the result is the same. When we suffer, God is in control. Naturally, that makes us wonder why he allows us to suffer. And it's not a big leap from those questions to anger when we don't get the answers we want.
     Is it OK to be angry with God? The answer to this question can't be a simple yes or no. But to find the answer, let's explore the yes and no answers and evaluate them in the light of Scripture.

First perspective: No, it's not OK to be angry with God
Reason: God is God. His thoughts are higher than ours and we should not question his ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). Though we associate Job with patience, Job's words are in fact filled with anger and frustration towards the God that was in control over his suffering. In the end, God rebuked Job for questioning him "without knowledge" (Job 38:1-2). We are reminded in Romans 9:20-21 that God is the potter and we are the clay. "Who are you, o man, to talk back to God?"
     Anger, in this view, is always wrong because anger comes from a lack of faith. We don't trust God and his ways, so we are upset with how he ordains our days. Another problem with anger is that it can come from our pride. We believe we know better than God. We think that if we had his power, we would run the world  (or at least our own lives) better. Anger also comes from a sense of entitlement. Rather than being content with the life God has given us, we believe we deserve better than what we have.
     And so it is understandable that Scripture reminds us again and again to put anger far away from us (Ephesians 4:31), "for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God" (James 1:20).

Second Perspective: Yes, it's OK to be angry with God
Reasoning: Anger itself is not sin. In fact, the grammar of Ephesians 4:26 is an imperative - a command: "Be angry." Of course it goes on to clarify that in our anger we should not give in to sin, but that clarification means a lot. It distinguishes the feeling of anger from the sinful actions it may produce. As we read through the Bible, especially the Psalms and prophets, we find men and women expressing anger with God and his ways. They are not rebuked for this. Instead, God has a pattern of dealing gently with them, often using their anger to teach them important lessons (see Habakkuk, Jeremiah, etc). Anger is a normal response to our suffering, and God allows it without condemning it.

     Both of these perspectives have Scriptural support, and both of them express truth that we must consider. But neither of them gives us the whole picture, and for that we need a more balanced perspective.

Balanced Perspective: How to Be Angry With God
     Most of the time that Scripture gives instruction about anger, it uses the word "slow." As in James 1:19, "let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger." In this, we are to model ourselves after God, who is also slow to anger (Psalm 103:8, Exodus 34:6). If anger is always sinful, then what do we do with a God who gets angry?
     But that's not really our question, is it? We're asking "Is it OK to be angry with God?" not "Is it OK to be angry?"
     Randy, my co-pastor, was preaching on the topic of grace recently and he used a great illustration that I'm going to apply in a different way. Randy said that the grace of God is not a parking lot, it's a merging lane. We're not meant to stop and idle and remain in our sin because of God's forgiveness. Instead, because God forgives us, we merge into the life of obedience that God has prepared for us (see Ephesians 2:8-10). I think the same image applies to anger as well. Anger towards God is a problem when it becomes a parking lot - when we stop there, refusing to move on and allowing our anger to consume us. Anger towards God should instead be a merging lane. It's temporary by nature, and it directs us towards the path that we're supposed to be on, a path of trusting God in all circumstances.
     So with that image in mind, how do we navigate the merging lane of anger towards God?
1. Analyze the source of your anger. What is it that upsets you? When Jonah was angry over the loss of shade and over God's grace towards sinners, God asked him, "Do you do well to be angry?" (Jonah 4:4, 9). In analyzing the reason for his anger, the Lord exposed Jonah's hard heart. Jonah was angry for the wrong reasons, and for that he needed to repent.
2. Acknowledge your limits. This is where the first perspective informs us well. Our anger is almost always the result of our finite perspective. What seem unjust to us is perfectly just from God's perspective. What may seem unloving to us may be a more loving thing than we'll ever understand in this earthly life. When Paul says "we see in a mirror dimly" (1 Corinthians 13:12), he puts his finger on the painful cause of much of our anger. We don't see or know or understand all things. When we base our judgment on knowledge and perception that are incomplete, we can easily get angry. Acknowledging our limits will help us be slower to anger.
3. Avoid sinful expressions. This is where the second perspective informs us well. The anger might not be sinful, but the anger we feel can still lead us to sin if we express it wrongly. Remember Job? Yes, he was angry.  Yes God pointed out his ignorance. But we are told that "Job did not sin or charge God with wrong" (Job 1:22).
4. Abide with trust. If I truly am limited and cannot yet understand why God does what he does and allows what he allows, then I have to fall back on trusting his character. Is he trustworthy? Because he has given Jesus to die in my place, I know that he loves me. Because he has raised Jesus from the grave, I know that he is mighty over all things, even death itself. Because he has created galaxies and creatures my eyes will never see, I know that he is wise. When my circumstances don't make sense, I have to fall back on what does make sense - God is good, wise, and in control. I'll let those truths interpret my circumstances and not let my suffering define what is true.

     For me, the turning point was a preposition. I've been very careful to say "angry with God" instead of "angry at God." In the end, let our anger be something we share with the God who is himself angered by injustice, suffering, evil, and all that sin has done to ruin his good creation. God is angry at these things, let us be angry with him. But if we are tempted to turn our anger towards God and to be angry at him, let's get back in the merging lane, abiding in trust until we see clearly, know fully, and faith becomes sight.