Angry and Afraid
Everybody in my house loves to laugh. It’s literally our favorite. For Buddy the Elf, it’s smiling. For the Mullins family, it’s laughing. The kids insist I buy name brand yogurt tubes for the jokes on the package. (Apparently, the generic folks don’t have much of a sense of humor.). We are all so bummed when there isn’t a new “America’s Funniest Videos” in our queue to watch. And I will never forget the first time Max watched that old show, “Wipeout”. We make faces and use funny voices. We have inside jokes galore and Ryan and I watch our favorite comedies again and again. He even bought me tickets to Jim Gaffigan for my birthday. I. Can’t. Wait. We simply love to laugh. It is a universal truth for our little tribe.
There are traits like this for most tribes. Most groups of people have defining characteristics. Of course, there are always outliers, but in most cases you can find commonality between people. There are fewer commonalities between all people, but they do exist. The old saying about death and taxes is true, but there are deeper common experiences among mankind - we all have need, we all love, we all experience loss, hurt, and anger. The simple fact is this: this world is not as it should be. Our hearts bear the marks of this truth. We all carry wounds, both self-inflicted from our poor, sinful, selfish choices and also from the poor, sinful, selfish choices of others. One cannot live life on this earth long before experiencing the fallout of this truth - we will be hurt, disappointed, and offended. Since this is an inescapable part of life, the Lord has been really showing me that His people, first and foremost ME, should be better equipped and prepared to deal with these experiences HIS way.
The story of the death of Uzzah is something we could discuss and dissect for many days and weeks, but as I read through the account in 1 Chronicles a few weeks ago, something very different jumped off of the page to me. Normally, our eyes are on Uzzah as we read this passage. This time, let’s turn our attention to David.
“So David assembled all Israel...to bring the ark of God from Kiriath-Jearim. And David and all Israel went up...to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the LORD who sits enthroned above the cherubim. And they carried the ark of God on a new cart, from the house of Abinadab, and Uzzah and Ahio were driving the cart. And David and all Israel were celebrating before God with all their might, with song and lyres and harps and tambourines and cymbals and trumpets.
And when they came to the threshing floor of Chiron, Uzzah put out his hand to take hold of the ark, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and He struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark, and he died there before God. And David was angry because the LORD had broken out against Uzzah...And David was afraid of God that day, and he said, ‘How can I bring the ark of God home to me?’ So David did not take the ark home into the city of David, but took it aside to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. And the ark of God remained with the household of Obed-Edom in his house for three months. And the LORD blessed the household of Obed-Edom and all that he had.” (V.5-14)
David and ALL of Israel are rejoicing before the Lord - worshipping as the ark is brought back to Jerusalem. As they worship, however, there is a fundamental problem. The ark of God was never to be carried on a cart. Exodus 25 gives specific instructions for how the ark - the very manifestation of the presence of God among his people - was to be transported: “You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark by them.” Also, Deuteronomy 10:8 specifies who may carry the cart by the poles placed through the rings: “At that time, the LORD separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD…”. David and the people are attempting to worship God while simultaneously ignoring His instructions. Worship and a disregard for God’s commands cannot co-exist. And so ended the life of Uzzah. The ark should never have slipped because it should never have been on a cart which could stumble. The Lord surely steadied the feet of his consecrated servants as they bore the ark according to His word; the same simply was not true for the clumsy feet of oxen.
But the thing the LORD has really been showing me has less to do with Uzzah and more to do with David. David was a great king (the greatest human king of all Israel’s history by the estimation of most), but although he had prepared to bring the ark home by consulting with many wise men (see 1 Chron. 1:1-4), he failed to consult God’s law. He mistook a general consensus from men to be a word from the Lord (a dangerous assumption) and went forward unadvised by God. David’s heart was full of joy, as were the hearts of all of the people as the ark traveled home. Can you imagine his shock when Uzzah fell dead? Tragedy never seems more tragic than when it strikes in the midst of happiness. In his shock, David also did not turn aside to inquire of the Lord. Instead, two of the traits most common to all of mankind overtook David. He was angry and afraid.
Life doesn’t go as planned pretty often. A single phone call, a “we need to talk” moment, an instant of irresponsibility on our part or the part of another can wreak havoc in our lives. This happens in the macro’s and micro’s of our lives. In the biggest and smallest ways, things go wrong. They veer off course. Harsh words are spoken, an absence is misunderstood as a slight, or tragedy strikes. And we do what David did - we look at God, standing there, who either (from our perspective) allowed this moment or caused it, and we get angry and afraid.
In her study for the book, It’s Not Supposed to be this Way, Lysa TerKeurst describes the disappointments of life as “God not doing what we think a good God should do”. This is absolutely what happened in David’s heart when Uzzah crumpled to the ground. God was not behaving according to David’s expectations or desires. Friends, this is such deep folly. And I do it all of the time. And so do you. We look at the God of the Universe, the one whose character is the very definition of goodness and justice and grace and love, and we declare him to be falling short of our standards. Most of us would never make this declaration aloud, but we make it all the same. And in these moments, we choose to be angry and afraid - just like David did.
When I allow my circumstances to make me angry with God, I am making a declaration that I know better than He does. He has failed me.
When I live in fear of what my life may bring, I am making a declaration that my God is not good and cannot be trusted to govern my days. I cannot be certain He will really work all things for good.
When I allow hurt in a relationship to live unresolved and unforgiven in my heart, I am making a declaration that God did not protect me like He should have. He cannot be trusted to protect me moving forward.
When I live afraid in relationships, guarded and distant, I am making a declaration that I am my own protector. It is up to me to guard myself from harm and fulfill all of my own needs.
One of the most tragic things about living in anger and fear is that they paralyze the work of God in our lives. So, not only do we get ourselves into this toxic and unhealthy place, but then we get stuck there. I have been the person immobilized by anger built up by years of unforgiveness. I have been the one paralyzed by fear, rotting from the inside out because I bought the enemy’s lie that my God would not be as good as I would need Him to be.
But I have also been the daughter gently loved and patiently taught by the Lord. He has proven His goodness to me again and again. He has proven more faithful than I could’ve imagined - in the middle of everything falling apart. When my eyes have opened in the mornings hoping the nightmare of yesterday was just a dream - He has been there. And He has worked such beauty from all that I thought was going wrong. And He has shown me how small and meager my plan was and how broad and beautiful His plans are.
David responded in anger and fear. And it appears as though he missed out the blessing. Look back at the passage. David is afraid and asks, “How can I bring the ark of God home to me?” So they drop it off at Obed-Edom’s home. Now, this could’ve been David letting cowardice get the better of him and pushing the ark off on the first house they passed. But it also may be that the fear David experienced caused him to remember that God had given instructions about the ark. Obed-Edom was a Levite, so his home would’ve been an appropriate place for the ark to reside. We cannot know for sure the motivation David had. But, either way, the ark ends up in the home of Obed-Edom. And what does God do? The presence of God blesses Obed-Edom and his household. No matter the reason David took the ark there, the fear he experienced (healthy or otherwise) caused him to miss out on the blessings of the presence of God. This blessing would have been David’s if he had chosen repentance and faith over anger and fear.
Friends, when we make anger and fear our masters, we shackle ourselves to the ocean floor. There can be no life there. If anger and fear are your masters, you have chosen them to be so. Just like I have so many times. But forgiveness and faith will be a breath of air into our strained lungs and will burst the bonds we’ve put ourselves in. Instead of lamenting that God has not done it our way, what if we did it His way? I see so many believers paralyzed, wondering why they aren’t getting anywhere and why they don’t feel fruitful and joyful. Could it be that we have simply chosen wrongly? That we have elected to be angry and afraid in response to life going “wrong”, instead of choosing faith and forgiveness? Could it be that many of us have allowed these things into our lives and not even noticed that we have made them our masters?
Here is the truth that the Spirit is crying out for us to hear: our God can be trusted. No, He cannot be understood fully. He cannot be tamed or limited or explained away. In the moments when life doesn’t make sense, He has not changed. We can look to Him like a compass to guide us back home. And at the end of our lives, all of the bricks we piled up over years of anger and fear will have disappeared. None of it will matter then. He will matter - our loving Father who was there all of the time. We do not have to live in the paralyzing state of being prisoners to anger and fear. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Gal.5:1). The choice is yours. And mine.
- Anne Mullins