When we hide our shameful thoughts and repress our negative emotions, we can easily spiral down the emotional staircase to hatred and despair. Far better is to cry out to God pouring out to God our pain and anger and demanding to be answered.

A number of years back, Pierre Wolff wrote a wonderful little book on uncensored prayer. It is called “May I Hate God?” and it touches on the very centre of our spiritual struggle. Our many unexpressed fears, doubts, anxieties, and resentments, he says, prevent us from tasting and seeing the goodness of the Lord. Anger and hatred, which separate us from God and others, can also become the doorway to greater intimacy with God. Religious and secular taboos against expressing negative emotions evoke shame and guilt. Only by expressing our anger and resentment directly to God in prayer will we come to know the fullness of love and freedom. Only in pouring out our story of fear, rejection, hatred, and bitterness can we hope to be healed.

The Psalms are filled with the raw and uncensored cries and agonies of God’s people, poured out to God and asking for deliverance. For example: My God, why have you forsaken me…I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent. (Psalm 22:1-2)

The more we dare to show our whole trembling self to God, as did the ancients who prayed the Psalms, the more we will be able to sense that God’s love, which is perfect love, casts out our fears, purifies our thoughts, and heals our hatred. — Beliefnet.com (Concluded)