How to Pray When You’re Mad at God: 4 Tips from Psalm 13

2024 has been the hardest year of my life emotionally and spiritually. It started with a revelation from God that I struggle to view Him as Father. I can connect with God the Son and Holy Spirit, but there has been a block for me when it comes to God the Father. And God graciously showed me that it’s because I view Him as the one who took my dad from me. The moment I realized that, I also came to understand (with the Lord’s help) that I’m actually mad at God.

This was a hard realization to come to, because I love the Lord with every ounce of my being. But being angry doesn’t discredit my love for or faith in Him. In fact, a huge lesson I’m learning is how to let my faith and feelings coexist. However, until now, I haven’t felt secure enough to be able to process such difficult feelings.

Now that my life is settled and I am firmly rooted in my relationship with God, He knew I could start working through the hard things. God is wise enough to withhold revelation of difficult feelings when we aren’t ready for them, and gracious enough to open that door when He knows it’s time to unpack some things.

The difficult thing to figure out, for me, has been my prayer life. It’s hard to communicate with people when you’re mad at them, and the same issue arises with God. Prayer has drastically changed for me over the last six to eight months, and I feel like I’m only just now getting a handle on my new normal. I have found such comfort and guidance in the Psalms. They are filled with real, raw emotions, while at the same time expressing complete faith in God.

As I have worked through questions full of anger and grief for God, Psalm 13 has been especially helpful. It’s a psalm written by David, most likely during the time he was on the run from King Saul, hiding in the wilderness and begging God to keep him safe and spare his life. I think we can take a lot of pointers from David on how to pray when we’re mad at God. Let’s take a look at Psalm 13 and unpack four steps for praying when you’re angry.

Psalm 13 (NIV)

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

¹ How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
² How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

³ Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
⁴ and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

⁵ But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
⁶ I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

1. Acknowledge that God is big enough to handle your anger.

This is something you’ve probably heard a hundred times, but it’s worth repeating. The truth is, sometimes we hear things like this about God without actually understanding what they mean. David had an acute knowledge of who God is, and that’s why he could throw his emotions at God in such blatant ways. David understood that God created his emotions and was willing and ready to receive every last one of them.

We never see David belittling God’s capabilities by withholding his true, human feelings. In fact, over and over again, we see David throwing every emotion possible at God through his writing of the Psalms. We see this clearly in Psalm 13. David expresses doubt, sorrow, grief, abandonment, mental exhaustion, and the list goes on.

The point is, he doesn’t hold back. Why? Because God can take it. He is so great and mighty, and our feelings, even those that are against Him, will never be too much for Him to handle.

2. Be honest in your prayers.

Here’s the thing: God already knows everything you’re thinking anyways. So why hold back? When you feel mad at God, it’s okay to tell Him why! You aren’t telling Him anything He doesn’t already know, but you are releasing those feelings from your own heart, and that can do you a world of good.

I love how David begins Psalm 13. He essentially accuses God of abandoning him, which is something I can say I empathize with. It’s easy to feel that way when you’re in the midst of suffering and trials. David, the man after God’s own heart, felt abandoned. And he made that clear to God. It didn’t mean he was negating God’s goodness, sovereignty, or love—he was simply being honest about his human feelings.

What I am coming to learn is that, until we honestly express that fleshly side of us—those thoughts and feelings that make us feel unfaithful to God—we will never get to the fullness of who He is and what He has for us. All those thoughts and feelings, if not given to God, will take hold of our hearts and slowly turn us against the only One who can see us through the end of the darkness.

Honesty with God is crucial, especially when we are angry, doubting, and hurt. I used to think that me expressing my honest thoughts and feelings meant I was turning against God, but the truth is, it can actually align you with His heart. Though my relationship with Him has felt strained in recent months, I have also never felt closer to Him. And that is solely because I have been more honest with God in the last 8 months than I have in all the years of my life prior.

Bonus Tip

Write your prayers down! I cannot express enough how beneficial this is. Writing down your prayers, especially the hurt and angry ones, does two important things: one, it physically gets those thoughts and feelings outside of your own heart, which then takes away their power to cause destruction; and two, it gives you the opportunity to look back on those prayers later and see how God moved in each situation.

I journal so many of my prayers, and it is always one of my first tips for helping boost your prayer life. There are a couple of journals I’ve found that I really love for doing this! My favorites are those with a designated spot for the date, or at least a good margin in the heading to write the date. This one is my favorite simple option for prayer journaling. I also love finding journals with beautiful, artistic covers from local shops, bookstores, etc.!

3. Ask God questions.

And…don’t expect to get an answer. I can’t tell you how many questions I’ve written in my prayer journals over the last 8 months that have yet to get an answer. But you know what? I felt better after asking them.

We see David doing this countless times throughout the Psalms. In fact, in Psalm 13, he asks five different questions in just the first two verses. David had no problem throwing all his angry doubts at God.

I have always had questions for God about things that have happened in my life. All the whys, hows, and whats you can think of. What changed this year is that I no longer felt content with not having answers. All my life, I’ve been okay with simply accepting that God knew what was going on, and that was enough for me.

It hasn’t been until my current season of healing that I shifted in my feelings on that. I suddenly found myself in a position of wanting to demand answers from God, answers that I knew God didn’t have any obligation to give me. But I asked anyways. And through that asking, I saw deeper into the heart of God. Even though He didn’t always give me the answers I was looking for, He used my questions to show that I was missing a crucial part of who He is: my great and loving father (that’s a story for another time).

My point is this: asking God questions about what we are experiencing might not give us the answers we’re looking for, but it will open up a door for Him to lead us to what we need.

4. Remember that He is good.

This can often be the hardest part. It’s difficult to remember the good in someone you’re mad at, and yet, God is nothing but good. This is what I admire most about David in his psalm writing. Despite all those questions and pain he expressed, he ends with, “I will sing the Lord’s praise, / for he has been good to me.”

I remember when I first read this Psalm, I was blown away by those last two verses. I remember thinking, “how is it possible to have so much pain and doubt, and yet be so filled with faith at the same time?”. But that’s the human experience, is it not? To walk through the pain of this world while knowing there is eternal hope. And that hope is so much greater than any momentary feeling we might have.

So, no matter how mad at God you might be, how much grief is weighing on your heart, or how much pain you have to face in this world, remember this: God is good. And He has good things for you, whether you see them in your present circumstances or not.

It’s okay if you have days when you’re so mad you don’t know how to even think about God. You’re allowed to ask “why?” a hundred times over and get frustrated when you never hear the answer. You can even tell God it’s not fair!

I have done all of that and more during this year of healing, and I can honestly say that I’m not done with it yet. But when I feel myself getting overrun by the pain, I remind myself of Psalm 13. If David, the man after God’s own heart, could have such painful questions for God, I can too. And if he chose to trust the goodness of God even in the midst of all the pain, I can too. And so can you.