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Health & Fitness

Is It OK To Question God?

When things don't go as planned, or hoped, is it OK to question God? Is it OK to vent out let God know how you feel? Did anybody in the Bible do such?...

Dear Pastor Andy, is it OK to question God? I feel like God's purpose was too big for me...that I was too young to do it. Most people would feel honored, but I guess it felt like a death sentence for me..being 17 at the time. I just don't feel like I deserved this. I feel bad for questioning this, but do wonder if anyone else feels or has felt something like this, or if it's even OK for me to?

My Reply:

Friend, I feel your pain, I really do, for doing God's work in a world that continues to reject Him and His message is most often not an easy task, especially for a teenager.

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Is it OK to question God? Of course, for that's prayer (if you bring it all up to Him). You'll also find that all throughout the Bible, people questioned God's calling (Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Job, Gideon, Simon Peter, Paul...). King David questioned and vented out to God all the time. That's where we get the book of Psalms. But you see, for every one, the Lord encouraged and equipped them so that they may become the great leaders that we know them as today, and that He called them to become.

I once heard somebody say, "God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called." With that in mind, to say that God gave you something that was too big for you to handle is not really what God did. He gave you a mission, and regardless of how you think it went, the fact that you are no longer there, tells me that you successfully fulfilled His mission for you. Was it difficult? Sounds like it. Did you get damaged in it? Maybe, but YOU were the one who God chose to carry it out because you were the right one for the mission, whatever it was.

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The biggest mistake you could make now, though, is to withdraw from God. If anything, you should be moving closer to Him, especially now. Remember, even Jacob wrestled with God, and Gideon really let God have it by letting Him know where he felt that God had fallen short of His promises. So vent it all out like David did. Tell God how you feel! He's God-enough to take anything you can dish out (if He wasn't, then He couldn't be God). But when you do, also allow yourself to recognize His glory in your suffering, as did David, His love for you and those to whom He sent you, and His presence now, in your healing.

For more questions and great Bible-based topics, please stop by my blog: "The Salty Trail".

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