Venting vs Restraint: The Incident With The Manna
Proverbs 29:11 A fool vents all his feelings, But a wise man holds them back.
Venting is often seen as a positive in today’s age. The secular world has sometimes called it “therapeutic.” But we as believers need to be very careful when just buying into any worldly trend, such as venting, remembering we are to base our lives on the standard of the Bible and not the back-and-forth trends going to and fro throughout the world.
The next passage uses beautiful poetry (the KJV version in particular) to recall the Exodus journey Moses led Israel through:
Psalm 78:24-31
24 And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven.
25 Man did eat angels' food: he sent them meat to the full.
26 He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven: and by his power he brought in the south wind.
27 He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea:
28 And he let it fall in the midst of their camp, round about their habitations.
29 So they did eat, and were well filled: for he gave them their own desire;
30 They were not estranged from their lust. But while their meat was yet in their mouths,
31 The wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel.
Israel was at first happy and thankful for God providing “manna,” a strange white food-like disc that rained from the sky daily. God had saved Israel both from slavery and starvation. Not only this but Israel did not need to work. They had free food and no responsibilities. A lot to be thankful for right? But God never made them feel guilty nor made fun of them. He could have called them welfare bums on the divine dole. But he was happy to see Israel rest after the slavery. They had spent all day every day of their miserable lives carrying punishing loads and doing manual work which would have been difficult even with modern machinery. Now that they rested, finally they would be appreciative to this God who came through right? Temporarily yes, but after a while there began to be a problem. What kind? They were BORED.
Numbers 11:4-9
4 Now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving; so the children of Israel also wept again and said: “Who will give us meat to eat? 5 We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; 6 but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!”
7 Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its color like the color of bdellium. 8 The people went about and gathered it, ground it on millstones or beat it in the mortar, cooked it in pans, and made cakes of it; and its taste was like the taste of pastry prepared with oil. 9 And when the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna fell on it.
A “mixed multitude” had taken advantage of Israel’ Exodus to hitch a ride on the miraculous journey and partake in the free provision. They did not serve God however, but worshiped the idols of the various countries they had come from. This mixed multitude was the first to complain. They did not even worship God so it should have been none of their business and yet they already felt entitled to God’s provision. Receiving the manna had become such a consistent thing that they now just took it for granted.
Since this foreign mixed multitude could not and did not desire to approach God, they pushed the people of Israel to do the complaining on hopes that God would put some meat on the menu for Israel, and the mixed multitude could leech off the leftovers.
Israel had been content until these worshippers of false gods told them that they were missing something. Isn’t that just like the garden of Eden where the devil told Eve she needed something extra to be like God, whereas God had already made mankind fully in His image? We suffer with the same weakness today, looking to external opinions instead of standing firm in our beliefs.
Contentedness comes easily until we are exposed to the spirit of comparison. When the satanic influence whispers the lie that our life is not good enough. This can be from vain friends or more commonly from social media. We begin covetously watching like Ahab, seeing the best part of others’ lives and suddenly feel the need to have them ourselves. This is not the spirit Christ taught us. Any desire to match another’s life is covetous and satanic.
Chubby Chicken from the Sky
After their “therapeutic venting,” things didn’t go so well for Israel.
Numbers 11:31-34
31 Now a wind went out from the Lord, and it brought quail from the sea and left them fluttering near the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and about a day’s journey on the other side, all around the camp, and about two cubits above the surface of the ground. 32 And the people stayed up all that day, all night, and all the next day, and gathered the quail (he who gathered least gathered ten homers); and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. 33 But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was aroused against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague. 34 So he called the name of that place Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had yielded to craving.
God had told Israel he would stuff them with so much Quail that it would “come out of your nostrils” and become hated just like the manna before it. There were so many fat little birds they were said to be piled up three feet (two cubits) high! That is quite the buffet. God really went all-out in answering the people’s petition. Even though the request was given in an obnoxious manner, God still tried to honour it by making their desire come true.
Things quickly went south however. As the people dined on the delicacy, God struck them down with a violent plague.
Why did God kill the people? Were the quails sent as a trap?
The answer is that the people they didn’t give thanks before eating. All God wanted was that after finally getting their luxurious supplication answered and fulfilled, they would bless God with thanksgiving before eating. Is that such an unreasonable thing for God to expect from us? It seems he often has to do so much hard work behind the scenes, the minimum we can do is just return joy and happiness in praise and giving thanks. Many of us in the wealthy western world don't realize that we are already in the promised land. We still complain, call our lives difficult, and pretend our wants are needs. Let's take a step back and realize how good we have it and just give God the thanksgiving that He deserves.
When the people of Israel complained, God REALLY hated it. He did not credit them for “being real” or “having self expression.” Why should we feel God would do differently with us?
There is a type of request you can make aggressively enough that God will answer that specific request, but it comes at the price of reduced long-term relationship with Him. This is where you come before God with a “demanding” tone for a personal request, or a request that is part-personal and part-kingdom, insisting it be done. Or listing the things and works and ministry you did as justification for a request to be fulfilled. This is not something you ever want to do. God may fulfill that one request, but it damages your overall relationship with Him (....which includes future requests). This is what the people of Israel did when they DEMANDED quail. God fulfilled their request, but at the cost of a broken relationship with Him.
Can a Christian be Mad at God?
In some spheres of life, being disgruntled can be a method to get your way. To get an authority to do things for you. Plenty of people are what I call “permanently disgruntled” despite having quite lavish lives. They use this mindset as a tool to keep expecting and demanding more.
Now as for the question, can you vent to God that you are mad at him? I will be straight with you here. In my personal experience, throughout the years, any time when I’ve gotten annoyed or angry at God and expressed it, it has never ended well for me. Perhaps you might say it is necessary to “be honest” about how your are feeling. Don’t give yourself so much self-justification. In the end, when you go back and forth with God, God will always win and your complaint will be counted as worthless when it has been presented in anger and pride. Just because human authorities ignore complaints presented in humility and usually only listen when there is hostility or a big protest, this does not mean we should be so doubtful that God hears our humble petition. You yell to be heard from a person at a distance but speak softly to one who is close by. Likewise, coming with a loud, angry spirit is a sign of a relationship with God that was already allowed to grow more distant than you may want to admit.
If you are reading this it means you lived long enough to have quite a variety of life experiences and God certainly doesn’t owe you or me even a second more of life. Even if a meteor struck and killed 100% of life on earth, we should still be thankful for the portion of life we were able to experience as a free gift up to that point. Not even counting the eternal life afterwards.
If you vent anger at God for the bad things in life, he will judge you by the standard of the person who had worse trials and sufferings and yet CHOSE TO PRAISE AND CONTINUE SERVING GOD despite those things. You will be judged by the standard that man set when he overcame his worse trials with a good attitude.
So no, you cannot vent your anger at God and will fall under judgement for doing so.
But you can say it humbly as a confession and ask Him for inner healing. This is the proper way to deal with. Confess to God that you have feelings of anger toward him but don’t try to justify it, then ask humbly for Him to heal the feelings of anger and soften your heart to Him and restore your relationship with God.
Psalm 142:1-2 I cried unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication. I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble.
With David having “poured out his complaint” before God, first off notice that “complaint” and “trouble” are singular. He did not go off listing all of his life problems to God, nor every annoyance. He prioritized what he needed and brought the main request to God, not tens of requests. Also, David’s complaint was only brought up in the context of his extravagant praise and worship he was doing continuously as can be seen throughout the rest of the Psalms. God knew David was a thankful person because David never stopped worshipping. As a result, God did not become angry when David brought forward the “complaint.”
Science Changes but God’s Word Stays Sure
For a long time psychologists promoted theories that repression of negative emotions was a primary cause of mental health issues. “Venting” was considered a good and healthy way of releasing these toxic feelings from the person with the idea that the person would afterward feel much happier and healthier. Activities such as punching at pillows or punching bags were encouraged. If a person had had issues were their parents, imagining them and screaming at them in an empty room was also taught as a technique to free up and remove this repressed hatred from the inner wound.
Unfortunately these unbiblical techniques did more harm than good and all of the activities designed to release anger were later discovered by science to only INTENSIFY a persons inner hatred. Knowing what the Bible teaches about the power of the spoken word to create life or death, a Christian should know that venting harmful feelings is simply giving them increased power. When we open our mouth there are innumerable spirits waiting to pass through the gate to the other side (our reality), thus entering our life to bring devastation, and only increasing the authority of darkness in our mind rather than dissipating it as the atheist psychologists taught. It should be obvious that trusting a philosophy created mostly by atheists for how to deal with your inner spirit and soul is not going to end well. Psychology is sometimes right but you have to take what they say as just human suggestions and not give it authority and trust. Because the science is always changing, but God’s Word remains forever.