Three Temptations to Avoid When You are Disappointed with God
Recently, I prayed with someone who expressed resentment towards her boss. As we prayed, she was trying to figure out how to respond to something her boss had done. She couldn’t figure out if he had wronged her or if she had acted out of line first. She also couldn’t figure out if God was calling her to forgive and let it go or if she needed to speak the truth courageously.
When we are following Jesus, we are regularly holding these sorts of decisions before the Lord who is with us in spirit. They can consume our mental energy as we spin the situation over and over in our head trying to figure out what to do. God offers to lead us if we’re listening. However, this listening for God’s voice of guidance is hard work and there are a number of ways we can go astray.
The core of the difficulty in listening is rooted in the fact that God may be leading us in a way we do not want to go. God may be doing something in us that we don’t like and this may lead us to resist his guidance and his voice. As we pray, God may reveal that he is teaching us patience as we await recognition. Or, he may be growing our capacity to love by putting us in a relationship with someone who requires regular forgiveness. If this isn’t the way we want God to lead us, we may resist hearing his voice.
When this happens, we might feel disappointed or abandoned by God. During these seasons, there are three common temptations that arise according to St. John of the Cross[1]. These temptations offer us shortcuts around God’s more difficult way. Their presence can cloud our discernment and make it hard to listen for the Lord’s voice.
1. Temptation to sexual sin – This temptation can be experienced as lust for another person, pornography, or in a desire for an inappropriate emotional intimacy with someone to whom you aren’t married. When we find ourselves disappointed with God for not doing what we expected him to do in our lives, this temptation can be especially appealing. Illegitimate sex soothes and comforts our hurt feelings and masks our sadness and grief. It also offers a way out from the isolation we feel from God. When we struggle to sense God’s leading there can be a deep sense of alone-ness. This temptation presents an illegitimate pathway to not feeling so alone.
2. Temptation to blasphemy – this temptation is primarily expressed through grumbling and complaining. When we feel disappointed with God, there is a temptation to lash out at him. We may indulge in these thoughts and feelings in private or we may be so bold as to spread our complaints to others by openly challenging God’s care and provision. We say to ourselves or others, “Why is this happening to me? Where are you, God? You must not care about me.” This is different from godly lament which is modeled in the Psalms and rooted in the belief that God cares for us. Blasphemous complaining is rooted in skepticism about God’s love. It’s like we want to dare or taunt God into doing our will by aggressively disparaging him. It doesn’t work.
3. Temptation to despair – This is the product of the spirit of dizziness, which is rooted in an experience of deep uncertainty and confusion. The temptation to despair is born of the hopelessness that comes from being confused and indecisive. When we are following God, and he leads us in a way we don’t really want to go we may think, “that can’t be right…there must be another way.” Then we may take control and try to find another way ourselves. This sets off a string of equivocating thoughts, doubts, and second-guessing. The result is that we may struggle to make decisions, which can lead to despair about the future. Another manifestation of this spirit of dizziness is found in the experience of scruples. These are excessive feelings of guilt that emerge when we think it’s all up to us. We may paralyze ourselves with self-recrimination, self-doubt, or self-loathing asking over and over of ourselves, “couldn’t I have been better?” This excessive guilt is similar to paralyzing indecision. Both are expressions of the spirit of dizziness or confusion, and they can lead to despair about our future. It’s important to remember that when we are in despair we aren’t seeing the future clearly. Despair misses the truth that the future is always hopeful in the Lord.
These three temptations offer us an alternative to going deep in our relationship with God. Each in their own way tempt us to circumvent the wildness of God and get what we are looking for by taking a shortcut. They are temptations to turn away from the true God, who we can’t fully know or control, and instead turn towards smaller gods that we can rule over and make work for us.
As my friend who was angry with her boss prayed, it became clear to me that she was facing the spirit of dizziness. She was tempted to despair about the future of her job and more broadly about her career. At the heart of this struggle was her reluctance to look honestly at her behavior, and this made it hard for her to discern any way forward. Spiritual direction offered a space for her to see more clearly the way the Lord was at work in her life and move forward in hope following his leading.
God’s call can be hard for us to discern. These common temptations make it harder. They can lead us astray and make it difficult to listen for God’s voice. As you read through this list of temptations, are you aware of one that you feel is particularly relevant to you right now? How might you bring this awareness to prayer and ask God to help you?
[1] Adapted from Keating, Thomas. Invitation to Love.
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