Is it okay to be angry at God? Yes, we said in yesterdays Daily Encounter, but we need to resolve angry feelings along with our grief; otherwise, in the long run, we only hurt ourselves.

Fourth, the question was also asked, is my daughter, who was killed in a car accident, in heaven with God even though she had strayed from him for a season?

In addressing this grief-stricken mother, the answer to her question, “Is my daughter with God in heaven right now?” is a very understandable question at such a time. The good news is that none of us gets into heaven on the basis of what we have or haven’t done. We get into heaven by the grace of God—and on the basis of what Jesus has done for us in that he died to pay the penalty for all our sins—and believing and accepting this. Because your daughter trusted in Jesus as her Savior, she is safe in heaven and you will see her again and be together forever.

As today’s Scripture assures us, if we have accepted God’s Son, Jesus, as our Savior, we can know that we know that we know that we and our loved ones who have also accepted Jesus will be with God in Heaven forever.

Fifth, getting back to your grief, if you can’t seem to resolve it, I urge you to seek professional counseling to help you work through your pain. If you live in North America and would like the name and phone number of a Christian counselor in your area, call the Narramore Christian Foundation at 1-800-477-5893 and press 1 for Dianne and she will help you.

Sixth, every day be sure to commit and trust your life and way to God no matter how you feel … and keep telling God exactly how you feel. He knows, he understands, and he cares. And keep saying out loud in a private place, “I choose to trust you God … I choose to trust you God ….” When you keep doing this, in time your feelings will catch up with your choice to trust in God.

Seventh, give yourself time to heal. Broken arms heal in six weeks. Broken hearts take much, much longer.

Finally, remember that God is with you no matter what and he will never leave you or forsake you. Never. That’s his promise to you and to all believers.²

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for the assurance in that all who have put their trust in you and have accepted your Son, Jesus, as their savior will spend eternity in heaven with you. And whenever I face heartbreaking disappointments, help me to remember that while these may be allowed by you, they are not caused by you. And help me always to resolve feelings of anger and grief and not bottle them up. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 John 5:11-13 (NIV).

2. See Hebrews 13:5.

NOTE: For further help see the article, “Grief and Loss Recovery” at: http://tinyurl.com/7l5xd.

The book, How to Mend a Broken Heart might also be very helpful. You can check it out at www.actscom.com/store.

“Dear Mr. Innes,” a Daily Encounter reader writes, “we lost our daughter in a car accident less than a year ago. She was only 18 and we are having a difficult time accepting God’s will. I am so very angry at him. It is a terrifying feeling, like a black hole with no bottom. Do you have anything that will help us accept what has happened and let go of the rage and sense of helplessness? Our daughter was a Christian but had strayed from God, but she had come back to him and turned her life around before she was killed. I have been tormented for months and want to know if she is in heaven with the Lord.”

Dear Norma (name changed), how terribly sad for you regarding the loss of your daughter. I would be brokenhearted too. At times like this it is difficult to know what to say.

First, however, let me say that a lot of things that happen are not God’s will. He has a directive will and a permissive will. Your daughter’s death was in God’s permissive will in that we live in a broken world where it “rains on the just as well as the unjust.” That is, because we live in a broken world, we all suffer in this life and won’t be freed from suffering until we get to heaven. While God allows things to happen, he doesn’t cause all of them.

Second, it’s okay to be angry at God but it’s not okay to stay angry because that only hurts you. God knows how you feel so the best thing to do is to tell him exactly how you feel and get it off your chest. Angry feelings need to be expressed. If necessary, go to a private safe place alone in your car. Turn your radio up loud, wind up your windows and verbalize all those angry feelings to God in all their intensity. It can help to do this say for 30 days … for 30 minutes the first day, 29 minutes the second day, 28 minutes the third day and so on.

If you don’t feel free to verbalize your feelings, write them out in a letter to God. Then read the letter back to him day after day until your anger has dissipated. Then you can either tear the letter up or burn it as a way of giving up your anger.

Third, grief needs to be sobbed out—sobbed out from the depths of your being—from your very gut. Tears are not for resolving anger. They are God’s gift to drain the pain of grief. Keep in mind, too, that “every unshed tear is a prism through which all of life’s hurts are distorted.”

Is your daughter with God in Heaven? See tomorrow’s Daily Encounter for an answer to this question.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you that in the tragedies of life you know, you care, and you understand. Please help me to understand why bad things often happen to good people, and lead me to the help I need to overcome my anger towards you, and to resolve my grief over the loss of my daughter. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Psalm 109:21-23, 26 (NIV).

I read about a lecturer who, when teaching on stress management, raised a glass of water and asked the audience, “How heavy is this glass of water?” Numerous guesses were suggested.

“What it weighs doesn’t matter,” the lecturer replied. “What matters is how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that’s no problem. If I hold it for an hour, my arm will ache terribly. And if I hold it for a day, I’ll be in real trouble. The longer I hold it the ‘heavier’ it becomes.”

That’s true in life. If we keep working without a break, eventually we will break. And if we keep carrying a burden that is too heavy to bear without doing something about it, sooner or later the burden will break us. Stress needs to be managed—without which it can become a killer.

Like Jesus and his disciples, there are times when we need to come apart and rest a while before we come apart.

Learn to take breaks. Rest a while. Then you will be able to renew your strength and carry on.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for the example set by Jesus in that we, too, need to take breaks to be refreshed. Help me to not only hear your advice but accept and put it into practice. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

For further help read, “Turning Stress into Success” online at: Turning Stress into Success: http://tinyurl.com/stress007.

1. Mark 6:31 (NLT).

I’d had a busy weekend and had barely arrived home late one Sunday night when my telephone rang. “Is it convenient for you to talk now?” an all too familiar voice asked.

“I’m afraid it’s not,” I replied. “I’m exhausted and need to get to bed.” Can you call me in the morning?”

But the man didn’t stop talking. He began to pour out a tale of doom and gloom. He’d already called me several times and once again was telling me how badly his parents were treating him. He blamed them for all his problems—even though he was a grown man.

Finally I interrupted and said, “Peter, what your parents have done may be terrible, but as long as you keep blaming them or anybody else for your reactions and the difficulties you are having, you will never get better. I know you want them to change, but you can’t do that. If you try to, chances are they will only get madder at you. The only person anyone of us can ever change is our self—and as we change, those around us are almost forced to change (not always for the best however). Some people don’t want us to change because they want someone to “beat up on” as it were, or gripe about, or to pamper or parent them, or whatever. However, now that we are adults let us never forget that parents or others only do negative things to us if we allow them to.

Admittedly, Peter’s case was somewhat extreme, but it does illustrate a very common relationship problem. In a more subtle but just as real way, this is seen in a friend’s marriage which is in trouble and the husband writes and asks me to pray for his wife. “She really needs prayer for her problem,” he says, but says nothing about his problems!

Ever since Adam and Eve, people have been avoiding personal responsibility and blaming someone else for their problems. So, if I could impart to all people only one truth that has the power to transform their life, it would be this: You are responsible for your reactions, your over-reactions, for what you feel, for what you think, and for what you do. Always in all ways!

True, we weren’t responsible for our upbringing and many things that happened to us in the past, but as adults we are now totally responsible for what we do about resolving our past, for what we do about our problems, to our reaction to them, and for what we become and for what we do with our life.

As I often say, God will give us wisdom, guidance and direction if we truly want it, but he won’t do for us what we can and need to do for ourselves. If he did, he would be keeping us over-dependent and immature.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me always to be honest with myself and with you, quit blaming others for my responses and my problems, and always be personally responsible for both my actions and reactions in all situations. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Genesis 3:12-13 (NIV).

A rather humorous thing happened to me recently. I received an email from a somewhat irate subscriber informing me that he wanted me to stop sending him duplicate copies of Daily Encounter. The interesting thing was that I received a duplicate copy of his message to me! I wonder whose computer had the glitch.

Criticism is par for the course in the work I do. Constructive criticism I appreciate. If it’s fair, I consider it, thank the sender, and often make changes accordingly.

It’s amazing how many subscribers blame me because they can’t get Daily Encounter or get angry at me because they can’t unsubscribe. Most of the time, however (not always), it’s because of a spam blocker with their server or computer that blocks their receiving Daily Encounter. Or when they can’t unsubscribe, it’s often because they are trying to unsubscribe the wrong email address. I always politely explain the cause of the problem, but rarely—if ever—do any of these subscribers apologize for blaming me for their problem.

On one occasion I got cursed out by an angry “subscriber” calling me among other things an “expletive deleted” blithering idiot for subscribing him. Interestingly enough I recognized the email address. It was that of a friend of this complainer who subscribed using his office email address and someone else opened the email. I couldn’t resist telling this man that the person whom he was calling a “blithering idiot” who subscribed this address was one of his workmates.

It sure is easy to project the blame for our mistakes onto someone else. I’ve been guilty of doing the same thing myself. I try not to do this, but when I do, I always apologize when I realize it is my error. By way of interest, angry people are notorious for projecting the blame onto the people around them for the problems they themselves have caused.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to see when I am in the wrong and be quick to admit it, and apologize for it when I blame someone else for it. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 7:3-4 (NIV).

“In December 1985 an enormous sinkhole swallowed a house and carport and forced the evacuation of four homes in a retirement community in Florida. The hole was about the size of a pickup truck when it was discovered. Within three hours it had grown to 30 by 40 feet and had swallowed half of a small house. Two hours later it had expanded to more than 70 feet, and the house with its carport was gone. Authorities were grateful that it finally stopped growing without doing even more damage.

“David discovered that sin is like an ever-expanding sinkhole. As he was walking on the flat roof of his palace, he saw a beautiful woman bathing. Instead of turning away, he stared longingly at her. At this point the sinkhole was small but expanding. When he inquired about who she was, the hole grew larger. And finally, when he sent for her, he soon found himself and those around him swallowed up. What started out as only a look ended in tragedy for all involved.”²

Many people, like David, find themselves falling into the sinkhole of temptation because they leave the door open for temptation to enter.

Temptation works the same for all of us. It’s progressive. It can start with an innocent look, then a thought, and then if we linger longer on the look, the thought progresses to desire, then to becoming blind to reality and fooling ourselves into rationalizing that it won’t hurt, and then to yielding. Following this pathway can quickly lead one into the sinkhole of sin as well as despair.

To overcome temptation we need to realize how vulnerable we are to the pull that temptation has on us. Note that “what the mind dwells on the body acts on,” so when temptation knocks on our door, the best defense is to change our thinking. To do this immediately, pray, “Help, Jesus, help,” and say over and over, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” until the tempting thoughts are wiped out.

Also, as God’s Word says, “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men [and women] of courage; be strong.”³ And again, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”⁴ “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”⁵

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, may I never forget that I, like David, am just as open and vulnerable to temptation as he was. Please help me to call on you in the hour or even the moment of temptation, and give me the strength to resist the devil so that he will flee from me. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 2 Samuel 11:2-3 (NIV).

2. “Lessons on Living,” Back to the Bible. www.backtothebible.org/.

3. 1 Corinthians 16:13 (NIV).

4. 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV).

5. James 4:7 (NIV).

I’m a writer, but if I always waited for inspiration to motivate me to write, I wouldn’t get much written because there are lots of other things I enjoy doing. Not always, but as a general rule, writing for me is only about five percent inspiration. The rest is 25 percent discipline and 70 percent perspiration or hard work. I think every writer, from time to time, struggles with a writer’s block, but you have to keep on writing when it’s your work.

When I thought about writing a book some years ago, it seemed like a daunting task, but when a friend suggested that I think of writing just one page at a time, I thought to myself, yeah, I can handle that.

When people ask me if I love writing, I usually answer by saying, “I love having written.” I do like to communicate ideas, however, and writing is one way to do that. Teaching in person is a lot more fun for me, but writing has proven to be more effective especially with today’s electronic means of communication.

Life’s like this. Obviously not everybody is called to write, but we are all called to do that which we are equipped to do. There’s a company where I live that is called Instant Grassification. It’s a clever name for installing instant lawns. But for achieving something worthwhile in life means having a clearly defined life purpose and then discipline, hard work, and determination to hang in for the long haul—and to “keep on sowing our seed,” and never giving up. There is no such thing as instant success.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to know what my God-given life purpose is and, with your help, to keep on keeping on so that when I get to the end of life’s journey I will hear your welcoming words, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.’ Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Ecclesiastes 11:4, 6 (TLB)(NLT).

According to an old joke which you probably have already heard, a construction worker took a sandwich out of his lunch bag and threw it on the ground, complaining loudly, “Baloney again! I hate baloney.” When a coworker suggested, “If you hate baloney so much, why don’t you ask your wife to make you something else?” he replied, “That’s the problem. I can’t. I make my own lunches.”

The baloney sandwich can also represent the things that we do to ourselves— and keep on doing no matter how much we hate doing them. I believe it was Einstein who first said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Another said, “If we keep doing what we’ve always done, we’ll keep getting what we’ve always got, and we’ll keep feeling what we always felt.” And as another saying goes, “Nothing changes if nothing changes.” Simplistic statements to be sure, but very true.

I’ve seen people repeatedly get into toxic and harmful relationships. Others stay in abusive situations, or in positions that are far below their interests and abilities. Others keep repeating the same mistakes on the job or in their relationships, and don’t do anything to change their behavior patterns. In other words they keep making themselves “baloney sandwiches” that they hate.

The fact is that what we don’t resolve, we’re destined to repeat … repeat … repeat—endlessly, ad infinitum!

So how do we/you change? First, be courageously honest and admit that you have a problem and that you are causing the problem. Second, ask God to confront you with the truth and reality of what you are contributing to the frustrating and even painful situations in which you find yourself. Third, ask God to give you the courage to see and accept your responsibility in overcoming your problem, and where necessary, seek and find the help you need to overcome—even if that means seeking help from a capable Christian counselor.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to be courageously honest with myself and with you. Help me to face and confront every unresolved issue in my life and lead me to the help I need to overcome. Thank you that you always hear the prayers of honest people and that you always answer them in the way that is best for us. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Psalm 145:18 (NIV).

While tiny ants teach us many lessons, including the importance of being prepared as much as possible for whatever might come our way, the conies or rock badgers show us the need for precaution and being responsible for taking care of ourselves.

These small animals hide behind the rocky crags jutting up in the mountains where eagles can’t get to them. They also hide close to the rocks where they remain unseen by prowling lions. Away from the safety of the rocks they would be dead meat.

Some of us are too overdependent, depending on somebody else or the government to take care of us. God’s goal for each of us is that we mature and grow up, not be dependent or overdependent, but interdependent. If we don’t take care of ourselves and protect ourselves from the many temptations and potential pitfalls that come our way, nobody else is going to do it for us.

As Peter put it, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”²

We don’t want to become cynics, but we do need to be careful, take necessary precautions, and accept full responsibility for every area of our life. And, above all, we need to trust our life to God daily as did David who said, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge … He is my stronghold.”³

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to always put my trust and take refuge in you. Deliver me from evil, temptation, harm and disaster. And guide me in the way that I should go. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Proverbs 30:26 (NIV).

2. I Peter 5:8 (NIV).

3. Psalm 18:2 (NIV).