Is God an Angry God?
Is God really mad? Is God angry with me? These are some questions many people, at some point in their lives, will ask. When facing difficulties, in particular, people tend to blame and think of God as a God who is angry and is not in a good mood, a God who is angry and ready to punish them with His wrath. Maybe you are guilty of this too. Have you ever prayed for a job that you never got? Or wanted a love one to live but he-she died because of a sickness? Have you ever struggled with your health or marriage and did not know why? Have you been upset with your children and saw them as disobedience? Many people point at God as the main source of these issues and further conclude that He is angry with them and distance from Him . The remedy to this situation, however, is to develop a good opinion of God and seek to fully understand His true loving nature that draws people closer to Him.
It is so easy to blame God for every challenge in life, thinking He is the one ruining one’s marriage, making people sick or just choosing hardships for them because, of course, He has a mysterious reason for every difficulty and/or may have purposed to teach them an important lesson. This understanding, to some extent, causes confusion and may lead people to believe that God is an angry God who is withholding His mercy from them. This is a very difficult place to be since one cannot fight an angry God who has all the power and has control over everything. Most people do not have any problem accepting God as all-powerful, and they know that He is capable of everything: “He has power over everything” (Qur’an 5:120). He is the creator of heavens and the earth and everything in between: “Originator of the heavens and the earth” (Qur’an 3:117). Then if he is all powerful and capable, one may ask, why is not He healing me? Why is He not saving my marriage? Why is He not giving me a child? Why is He not helping me? There is no doubt that He can, but why is not He doing something? It may even be concluded that God can help, but He has chosen not to. Such questions show that one has a wrong image of God—an image that is incomplete and does not depict the true nature of Him. Competency and mercifulness are two of the main qualities of God, and together they present a complete image of Him. A lack of understanding of His mercifulness will represent Him as an angry God who preforms what He prefers. Such an understanding distances people from God because when there is no love and mercy, there is not much closeness. Some people may still remain obedience to a powerful God who has no love, but they cannot be truly in proximity with Him. An example of that is like some workers who have a mean boss, yet they still obey his orders since he is the one with authority and capable of paying them each month. However, the workers probably do not want to choose such a mean boss as a friend and would not feel so comfortable around him. Some people feel the same way toward God, obeying Him not because they love Him, but because they need Him and are afraid of His punishments. This image can change through recognizing the true, loving nature of God.
Having the right image of God significantly influences people’s lives and will determine how well they receive from Him. . According to a Hadith (sayings of the prophet Mohammad), “God said, I am as my servant thinks (expects) of me …” (Sahih Al-Bukhari). In other word, if people think that He is an angry God ready to punish them with sickness or hardships, then that is what they get, and if they think that He is a loving God who would show up when they need Him, then that is how it would be. In another Hadith, God says, “‘I am as My servant thinks of Me. If he thinks good of me then so it shall be, and if he thinks ill of me then so it shall be” (Ahmad). Having a “good opinion” of God, (seeing Him as all-forgiving and all-merciful) therefore, positively influences one’s life, whereas viewing Him as an angry God, (who lacks love and mercy), keeps one in bondage.
To develop a good opinion of God, one can search within scriptures to discover the true loving nature of Him. According to the Qur’an, “Those who follow the Messenger, the Unlettered Prophet, whom they find mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel in their possession. He directs them to righteousness, and deters them from evil, and allows for them all good things, and prohibits for them wickedness, and unloads the burdens and the shackles that are upon them…” (7:157). He is a God that “deters them [believers] from evil,” meaning he does not enjoy giving them sickness or suffering to teach them a noble lesson. In fact, He “allows for them all good things” and “unloads the burdens and the shackles that are upon them” (Qur’an 7:157). When facing difficulties, it is God who “unloads” the difficulties and decreases the sufferings of people because He is compassionate and merciful: “He is the Forgiving, the Loving” (Qur’an 85:14). Meditating on this loving nature of God will help people to develop a good opinion of Him and thus experience more joy and happiness in their lives.
To conclude, God is not angry with people, and His mercy overrides His wrath. Considering Him as the main cause of unpleasant situations paint a wrong image of Him, a picture that leads to separation, misguidance and failure. To change this situation, people must seek to understand the true loving nature of God and develop a “good opinion” of Him. Indeed, the compassion and mercifulness of God has been mentioned repeatedly in different verses in the Qur’an, and through meditating on such verses, one can develop a more authentic image of Him, an image that is based on love and leads to more intimacy with the Divine.