Angry at God
But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah 4:1-3 (NIV)

The mercy God extended toward Nineveh upset Jonah terribly, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he became. Jonah was furious. He lost his temper, and he yelled at God.

Jonah decides, I’m going to tell God exactly how I feel, and he unleashes his anger towards God—and God accepts it. Don’t miss that. He listens to Jonah and accepts his anger because God accepts all of our emotions and He gives us freedom and safety to express them, even when they are about us being angry with God.

We understand Jonah’s anger, don’t we? Many of our social ills are our fault because we human beings have decided to define our morals, ethics, philosophies, and ideologies. We know that God sometimes exerts His sovereignty in human affairs and that at other times, God permits the full results of humanity’s choices. How He chooses which to allow and which to arrange can be confusing to us.

So like Jonah, we are angry. Now the question becomes, what do we do with this anger?

You must fight to not let your anger and disappointment choke out your obedience to God. He has already moved on your behalf enough times and with enough power that—even while you don’t understand—you can trust Him. You can trust that God, who gives you profound love, will also accept your deep hurt and anger and will, in turn, unfold the mystery of His will in all of it.