Yelling At God At 3:47am

I am convinced that the most stressful time of the day is between 2 and 4am. What is it about the early morning hours that make all the struggles in life seem insurmountable? There I was, lying wide awake in my bed experience one of the most stressful moments of the week. It was 3:47am, I was awoken out of a pleasant sleep only to turn 17 more hairs on my head grey. You see, for the past year or so of my life the only time I truly experienced peace was when I was unconscious. I longed for sleep as an escape from my immediate reality. Have you ever longed for sleep as an escape? If you have then you know exactly what I’m talking about. I have come to appreciate the 5-8 hours of sleep as not only an aid to my health, but as a mental and spiritual recharge that fuels me for the next day.

So there I was, lying flat on my back at 3:47am and the stress began to set in. How am I going to pay the rent this month? Where is the money going to come from to put food in my kids bellies? Will I ever find love again? The questions and worries go on and on. Have you been there? Have you ever asked the question “where is the hope I used to have”? These are questions I seem to be asking myself on a regular basis. I even took it farther, asking, “why am I still here”? What’s the point of existing if all your existence provides you with is pain? See, these are the questions that flood the mind at 3:47am.

Now it’s about 4am, I’m wide awake, frustrated, worried, and panicked, at my wits end. What do you do at this moment? Seriously, lying on my bed only seems to allow my mind the freedom to travel to the worst case scenario. Well, I’d like to say that I went out to my living room, cracked open my Bible and sought God for direction and peace. But, I was mad at God and felt like He has failed me, so why would I want to spend another minute with Him? Of course, we know that God has never failed mankind; rather, it’s the choices of mankind that leads to the sorrow and pain we experience. And unfortunately, the innocent are affected by the selfishness of others more the one committing the selfish act. So instead of going to God, I decided to pace my hallway, I know, clever right? Wrong, it made matter worse. I spent about 5 minutes pacing and all I accomplished was wearing out the carpet. I then made my way to the couch thinking that Sportscenter re-runs will help ease my mind. Well it did for a few minutes until I saw an expose on a NFL player that rivaled a MTV Cribs episode. This guy had it all, my dream car, dream house, dream location and the family to boot. Needless to say it didn’t help. So where did that leave me?

It’s 4:34am now and I’m covered in Wheat Thin crumbs, on my couch steaming mad and stressed to the 9th degree. Finally I began a conversation with God. ”God, are you still around? Do you see or even know about the struggles I’m going through? I’ve given you 14 years of my life helping and serving others and this is the thanks I receive. If this is how you reward your servants, then I want nothing to do with it. God, you know the bills that are hanging over my head, you know the emotional hurt that I’ve had to endure the past year with the unwanted divorce and yet you have seemingly gone quiet. I’m done God, I don’t want to live anymore! I want the life of no tears, sorrows or pain. Can I have that now? Seriously, that sounds great, bring it on. God, I understand you’re sovereign and have your best interest at heart and I’m supposed to be ok with that. Well, sometimes I think you are a bit unfair (at this point, my voice is escalating). You are a liar! You promised great things and what do I have? Outrageous debt, pain, sorrow and hopelessness. Where the hell are you God? Why have you turned your back on me? What have I done to piss you off?” At this point I was up off my couch and waving my hands in the air as an attempt to demonstrate my anger. It was then I got my response…
The response didn’t come from a loud or angry voice. It didn’t even come from a soft audible voice. Rather, the response came via a glimpse of my sleeping 10 year old boy. The moment I saw him in my peripheral I collapsed. Did the stress and worry go away? Not at all, in fact it increased. But for some reason my panic attack went away. Rather than continuing to whine and complain I began asking for direction and provision. My conversation with God went from being accusatory to supplication. You see, God showed me that He as laden me with a great responsibility of raising 3 children. He didn’t make a mistake loaning these children to me. He is not saying to Himself “Dang it, why did I give Thayer those kids”. I firmly believe that God knows what he’s doing.

It was about 5am now and I began to regain my composure. I am a big believer in perspective. When we step back and gain a healthy perspective the trials and tribulations of life don’t go away, they just become surmountable. This begs the question, how do we maintain a proper perspective? Here are two steps that seem to really reel me back in from panic land.

#1 Look to the past
The past can be a tremendous source of comfort. Remember as a kid when we used to go for long bike rides and occasionally look back in amazement at how far we’d gone. Or go on a hike up to the waterfalls of Yosemite and stand in amazement at how far you hiked. Well the same principle applies in our lives. In the midst of turmoil it helps me a great deal to remind myself of all the past obstacles I once thought were impossible to overcome, only to be better off after it was over. I asked myself the question at 5:15am that morning, why would God have brought me this far in life only to allow me to fail now? He’s just preparing me for what’s to come. I can only experience what’s to come tomorrow if I endure today. My encouragement to you is to take some time and write out stories of how you have overcome the past tragedies in life and the benefits that came from them. It might take a while, but trust me; it’s worth every minute you give it.

#2 Keep Your Eyes Open
I know what you’re thinking, duh Scott we have to keep our eyes open. I mean both physically and metaphorically. Remember that famous scene in Rocky where Rocky is getting the crap beaten out of him? The bell rings and he heads back to the corner, with his eyes swollen shut, he can’t see a thing. He’s in the fight of his life and can’t see 2 feet in front of him. What does he say? That’s right “Cut me Mick”. You see by cutting the top of his eyelids he allowed the swelling go down so he could see his opponent. Not much different then what we have to do. But instead of getting cut by Mick, we need to ask the following question, “God, can you let me see the areas in my life where you are blessing me”? Ya, I know, it’s a really hard question to ask at times. In my studies of the Old Testament I’ve discovered that it’s OK to ask God for proof of His involvement. Those stories are for another time. But, the point is, if we truly seek His proof, He’ll provide it. All we have to do is keep our eyes open for His answers. Sometimes his answers are right in front of our eyes and were embarrassed for not seeing it sooner. That’s ok too; God is pretty patient with us. My challenge is to take your expectation of a huge sign from God and look to the least likely avenue of answers. No, keeping your eyes open doesn’t take the pain away; it just takes away the feeling of being all alone in the trial. Don’t give up! Don’t throw in the towel; no matter the difficulty of your situation wanting to end one’s life is never the answer. Our answers are all around us, we just have to open our eyes to them.

Now it’s 5:48am, I request one more thing from God, it went something like this… “Ok God, I get it, thank you for letting me vent, (by the way, it’s ok to yell at God as long as it comes from a humble heart) thank you for the reminder of a proper perspective. I understand that you have been with me through the past trials and nothing takes you by surprise and that you are working this one out to your benefit, but I really need sleep. I have a huge day planned with the kids and I don’t want to be a grump, can you please allow me to get back to sleep?” Suddenly it was 8:15am and my 8 year old (Blake) was standing next to my bed gently rubbing my back and asking if he could play “Club Penguin” on my computer.