The Other Side Of God
A Look At Love And Wrath Amid A Wicked World
By Amanda Opelt
About five years ago, I found myself in a lonely, far-flung corner of eastern Uganda visiting a refugee camp of families fleeing violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The unrest in that nation was complex and seemed never-ending. We visited mothers that didn’t know where their children were, husbands who’d lost wives, remnants of family units trying to eke out a living in a new home with limited resources. Most had witnessed acts of unspeakable violence and human depravity.
Where was God?
As our SUV sped down the red dirt road leading away from the camp, a worship song blared through the sound system. The same CD had been on repeat for the entire drive from Kampala. I watched the camp fade into the distance and a familiar song repeated these words: “You are the everlasting God. You are the defender of the weak. You comfort those in need. You lift us up on wings like eagles.” I laughed bitterly to myself. It felt like an audacious claim in that place.
Really, God? Merciful? Kind? Where were You when these people needed defending? Other songs followed that spoke of God’s goodness, His love, the brotherhood of Christ, and the kindhearted, fatherly nature of the God of Jacob.
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a worship song that extolled and lauded the wrathful nature of God, but in that moment in that refugee camp, I wanted to know that God had seen what had been done to these people, that God had been deeply offended by it, and that God was going to repay. I wanted Him to not only defend the weak; I wanted him to defeat the wicked and avenge evil.
Reality
God gets mad. It’s a statement I’ve only just begun to wrap my brain around. Somewhere along the way, 21st century American Christianity lost the vision of Jonathan Edwards whose fiery teaching about sinners in the hands of an angry God is no longer palatable. Maybe it’s because we are cushioned and protected from so much of the stark evil in the world. Most acts of terror, genocide, and wholesale exploitations of entire people groups is relegated to a television screen or a news headline in our Twitter feed. We swipe past the discomfort, change the channel, move on to a more rose-colored view of the world in which most people are good at heart and most evil is rectified by a perceived equitable justice system.
But I would argue that an aversion to suffering and the complexity of evil in the world is a problem Americans need to reckon with. We don’t like to be uncomfortable. We like our experience with stress and hardship to be regulated by medication and relegated to one-hour episodes of Homeland. But that’s not reality and when we are confronted with reality, we don’t know how to process it.
I would also argue that systemic oppression and suffering is closer to our front door than we’d like to think. Your socioeconomic status, family context, neighborhood, race, or gender may shield you from some of the injustices in this country, but they are not far away.
Injustice
I started my professional life as a social worker serving the underemployed in Nashville’s inner city through GED tutoring, job skills classes, mentoring, and Bible study. I’d have intake meetings with prospective participants, women whose faces were worn with worry lines and furrowed brows. They’d grown up in a cycle of generational poverty or abuse. Few knew their real fathers, many had been sexually abused as children, and most were all too familiar with hunger. They’d struggled with learning disabilities in failing schools, pushed methodically through a broken system. Many had faced discrimination due to race or economic status. One woman recalled a story from her childhood of waking up to the sound of bricks smashing through her windows and a cross burning in her front yard. She’d dropped out of school after integration because she was tired of having racial slurs yelled at her by students and teachers all day. Another told me that her first memories were of being locked in the bathroom while her mother prostituted herself in order to support her drug habit. Countless stories of repeated physical and sexual abuse filled my files. One woman was encouraged by her high school principal to drop out when she got pregnant. Others came from loving homes where the ends simply never met. All were one car repair, one illness, one cut in working hours, or one unexpected bill away from financial ruin. They lived in a meticulously assembled house of cards constructed in the midst of a whirlwind.
Yes, God is kind. Yes, He is gracious. But was God as angry as I was at the injustice these women had faced?
After college, I spent time living in India working with several local mission agencies. They ministered among India’s lower caste people groups: slum dwellers, handicapped, lepers, and HIV positive. The HIV orphans we worked with, many of whom were HIV positive themselves, had been devastated by a virus that had been brought to the family when their fathers had slept with prostitutes. I saw handicapped children jeered at in the train station and in the neighborhood. I saw children in the slums digging through piles of trash, looking for any kind of treasure: a scrap of food, a broken toy, a stitch of clothing. And all the while, the sounds of Hindu temple worship filled the air. People would bow before blind, mute gods adhering to a belief system that accepted the fate doled out to them and their neighbors by these impotent gods. The temple drums would bang through the night giving rhythm to my troubled dreams. One day the elephant god Ganesh was paraded down our street, accompanied by wild drunken dancing and singing. Incense from the parade flooded into our home and left a heavy haze of misguided adoration.
Yes, He is the everlasting God. Yes, He is eternal. But would God someday smash these idols with any measure of the rage I was beginning to feel in my heart?
God Gets Mad
Seven years ago, I moved to Boone where my husband and I work in international aid and disaster relief. I’ve made countless trips overseas to visit our staff living and working in the aftermath of natural disasters and in the midst of wars. I’ve seen the devastation an oppressive government or terrorist group can wreak on an entire population. There are only so many times you can watch a child scream through the pain of a bullet wound before you wonder why the wrath of God is not more celebrated. The problem is that when I acknowledge the depth of the evil and brokenness in the world, I must also confront the depth of the evil and brokenness in my own heart. The depravity present in the heart of an ISIS combatant is perhaps the most significant thing we have in common. It’s an inheritance embedded in the heart of every human, handed down from Adam and Eve. “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior” (Colossians 1:21). But for the grace of God, seeds of hatred in my heart could easily grow, blossom, and lead me to commit acts of equal wickedness.
God gets mad. He will not be mocked. He is jealous. He is relentless in His pursuit of justice. He will punish evil. My friend Mark Langham, with whom I served in Iraq, once said, “If we, as a society, are unwilling to embrace this aspect of God’s character, then we delegitimize and gloss over the seriousness of the oppression that many in the world have faced. It’s not intellectually honest and it’s not theologically honest to ignore these elements of the stories, this portion of the overall narrative of scripture.”
God gets mad. He may even get mad at me.
God of Justice
And the real question may be this: Can we acknowledge this aspect of His character, and sit in the tension of who God is – that He is both loving and just – and still maintain a disposition of worship? Can we still adore this awe-inspiring, frightful, holy God? And what does it mean to fear the Lord in a way that is healthy and leads to wholeness? “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 9:10).
I think my favorite passage in all of scripture is Psalm 139: “Oh God, You search me and know me.” I’ve read that passage at weddings and baby showers, in my darkest moments and in my moments of celebration. But I will typically skip over verses 19-22. The whole bit about David cursing his bloodthirsty enemies doesn’t fit too well in the context of a baby shower. However, over a year ago in Iraq, I found myself praying over a dying boy as he breathed his last breath. He’d stepped on an IED (Improvised Explosive Device), left there by ISIS, men who in their depravity would often target children in the name of their god and their holy war. His wounds were catastrophic. I pulled out my Bible, searching for a passage of scripture to read over him. Almost out of habit I turned to Psalm 139. Even though he likely couldn’t hear me or understand the language I was speaking, I wanted him to know he was known by God – at least for that to be pronounced over him. And you better believe that I read verse 19 at the top of my lungs, “If only you, God would slay the wicked….They speak of You with evil intent, Your adversaries misuse Your name.”
Oh God, Great God of mercy and of justice. I join with You in Your anger at sin and evil in the world. I confess the sin in my own heart. Show me mercy And I leave room for your wrath to repay, for as Paul writes in Romans 12, it is Your sacred responsibility to avenge and right the wrongs in this world.
This article was originally written for the Winter 2018 Edition of The Journey magazine.
