Spiritual Hiccups - Mixed Emotions

I once knew a man who insisted that he and his wife never fought and that they never had.  I didn't know him well enough to judge the truth of his claim, but my doubt must have been apparent, because he reiterated his assertion in several forms, as though he felt the need to convince me.

I didn't try to argue with him, but I do have trouble believing that in a healthy relationship fights are non-existent.  If you are really engaged in a relationship and have any significant expectations of the other person, surely there will be times when some level of conflict will emerge.  The only way I can imagine a marriage or other serious relationship without conflict would be if neither party really cared.  And I have seen marriages like this, relationships so dead that the couple is able to coexist peacefully.

Relationship with God is certainly different from a marriage.  Unlike marriage it is not a relationship of equals.  Still, I have trouble envisioning a relationship with serious God which has no conflict.  And given how enigmatic God can be and how many things there are about God that I simply cannot understand, it seems inevitable that God will disappoint me, that I will occasionally feel let down by God, and even that I will become angry with God. 

In human relationships, it is not uncommon to hear one person speak of being upset, even angry, because a partner seems distant or absent.  Sometimes anger and conflict grow out of a deep longing for a partner who will not or cannot share themselves in a meaningful way.  And of the frustrations I experience in my relationship with God, this is my biggest.  Sometimes God seems so distant and unavailable that it grieves me.  Sometimes this grief can lead to a standoff with God, an arrangement not unlike a dead marriage where the couple manages to coexist while barely acknowledging each other's presence.  But sometimes my longing turns to frustration and even anger.

I don't know if the writer of Psalm 42 is angry, but I do sense the mixed emotions of a relationship that isn't quite right.  There is a longing for God, but also a sense of being abandoned.  There are memories of better times, and a restless and troubled soul that wonders if that can ever be recovered. 

Now I don't mean to encourage anger and conflict in relationship with God or humans.  But at the very least anger does mean there is some engagement in the relationship.  And if we never get upset or angry with God, is our faith a relationship, or is it just a belief in a concept?

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