What comes to mind when someone says, “Let’s pray…”? Is it stillness, quiet attention, or longing for change? Or is it rage?  

When a friend invites us to pray for the upcoming US Presidential election, she’d be shocked if we opened with Psalm 58.    

“Is this any way to run a country? Is there an honest politician in the house? Behind the scenes you brew cauldrons of evil, behind closed doors you make deals with demons.” (Psalm 58:1-2, The Message)

It’s common to assume that prayers should be comforting and not combative. But that assumption ignores many of the prayers found in Scripture, particularly within the Psalms. The prayers of the Bible frequently rage, complain, and even curse one’s enemies – all when speaking with God! Learning to pray our rage is clearly an important step to becoming more human and more humane.

Pastor (and Missio Alliance Leading Voice) Rich Villodas closed a sermon recently by saying, “the one place God does not dwell is illusion.” Expanding on this statement, Rich wrote further:

“To be clear, by ‘illusion’ I’m referring to the universal human tendency to live according to deception; orienting our lives away from honesty, integrity and congruence.”

In other words, spiritual growth is delayed by denying unpleasant emotions. God is present, even in our rage. Growth in spiritual maturity requires being able to pray our rage instead of denying, dismissing, or even destructively expressing it.

The prayers of the Bible frequently rage, complain, and even curse one's enemies – all when speaking with God! Learning to pray our rage is clearly an important step to becoming more human and more humane. (1/2) Share on X

Spiritual growth is delayed by denying unpleasant emotions. God is present, even in our rage. Growth in maturity requires being able to pray our rage instead of denying, dismissing, or even destructively expressing it. (2/2) Share on X

The Gift of Anger 

Anger is a healthy and right response to injustice. When someone we love is demeaned, defaced, or desecrated, anger is right and good. Anger gives us the energy to stand up to bullies. It enables us to demand accountability for actions that have hurt those we love. Anger helps us to enforce rules that keep our communities intact. It helps us to change rules that aren’t working.  

Anger is a benefit to others when stewarded in healthy ways. For example, the coach who says, “Don’t you dare quit on me!” is offering a gift. So is the mother who repeats herself to her kids countless times, reinforcing the truth that “Your behavior is unacceptable.” This is love’s more forceful side in action.  

We see this gift of anger in both the Old and New Testament. For example, when Isaiah decries injustice, he’s offering a gift to Israel about how God desires his people to behave:  

“For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing. I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.” (Isaiah 61:8)

Isaiah’s prophetic anger is undergirds love’s strength as it checks injustice and confronts wrong. And yet, in the same breath, his voice speaks of everlasting covenant between God and Israel. This is a love that both growls and whispers.  

Receiving anger as a gift is not intuitive for me. My Dad had an explosive temper. I remember cowering under a blanket in our basement in terror when he got upset. My Mom’s anger simmered in denial until it boiled over and scorched everyone in the family. These formative family experiences have largely formed how I relate to God, even if somewhat unhealthy. They also distort how I relate to myself and others.  

Recently, after reading something that provoked me deeply, I vented to a friend over text. I was blind to the impact that my own words would have. I was blind to the racial, ethnic, and gender dynamics that were at play. My venting hurt a friend I love, straining the trust between us. 

Fortunately, his response was offered back to me as a gift. Rather than lash out, he clearly let me know the impact of my words. My friend asked for time to work through his disappointment and anger at my response, and he committed to sitting down with me when he was ready to talk it through. His strength in love was a gift that helped me move towards healing.  

How does anger ultimately become a gift?

Christian spirituality offers two tools to transform rage into a love that growls when necessary. It offers lament and imprecation.

Anger is a healthy and right response to injustice. When someone we love is demeaned, defaced, or desecrated, anger is right and good. Anger gives us the energy to stand up to bullies. (1/2) Share on X

Anger enables us to demand accountability for actions that have hurt those we love. Anger helps us to enforce rules that keep our communities intact. It helps us to change rules that aren’t working. (2/2) Share on X

Lament – Complaining to God  

Lament refers to prayers of complaint. Lament cries out in anger and anguish at the pain, grief, injustice, and wickedness all around us. Psalm 13 is an example that we find in Scripture as a prayer of lament: 

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” (Psalm 13:1-2)

This prayer complains about being abandoned while experiencing ever-present grief. It doesn’t accept the status quo, but instead challenges and provokes God while asking, “Why are you doing this?!?” Lament is the prayer of the grieving. It is the prayer of the persecuted and marginalized. Lament prays with rage at injustice and indignity, giving voice to the voiceless. 

Lament fueled the words of Palestinian pastor and theologian Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac as he prepared his powerful 2023 Christmas sermon, “Christ in the Rubble: A Liturgy of Lament,” in the shadow of the violent Israeli war spiraling out of control in Gaza last fall. Rev. Dr. Isaac cried out: “We are angry. We are broken. This Christmas season should have been a time of joy; instead, we are mourning. We are fearful.” Lament does not simply express emotion. It challenges and provokes. His sermon included pointed questions like, “How is the killing of 9,000 children self-defense?”  

To complain that a sermon like this is too political is a mischaracterization. Gathering the urgent cries of a community into public worship is a profoundly healthy biblical practice. It humanizes us by enabling listeners to ‘mirror’ the emotional states and experiences of those who are suffering. Dr. Jeremy Sutton’s clinical work echoes this, as he observes that “Neuroscientists believe that the areas of the brain typically activated by our own emotions are also active when we observe another individual experiencing feelings or sensations.”  Seen in this light, lament is a powerfully formative tool for building emotional connection across differences rooted in our biology.  

Additionally, lament also humanizes God. We don’t complain to someone we don’t believe will care. Praying our rage reinforces our belief that God cares, especially in moments God seems far away. The theological intuition goes something like this: If listening to lament increases our compassion, how much more does it move the heart of God? Lament paradoxically reinforces trust in God’s compassion.

Lament is the prayer of the grieving. It is the prayer of the persecuted and marginalized. Lament prays with rage at injustice and indignity, giving voice to the voiceless. (1/2) Share on X

Lament also humanizes God. We don't complain to someone we don't believe will care. Praying our rage reinforces our belief that God cares, especially in moments God seems far away. (2/2) Share on X

Imprecation – Cursing in Prayer

Another other way to pray our rage is to curse in prayer (Yes, I mean this!).  These prayers are often called imprecatory prayers because they ‘call down’ judgments or evil. Psalm 3 is one example of many found in the book of Psalms:  

“Rise up, O Lord! Deliver me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked.”  (Psalm 3:7)

Imagine asking God to break someone’s teeth!  How could such a prayer be healthy and wise? 

Imprecations are the prayers of the violated. They are the cry for justice boiling over. It’s one thing to complain to God about a colleague’s unkind words. It’s another thing to voice prayers in the wake of violence or abuse.  

In her book How Can I Forgive You, clinical psychologist Janis A. Spring describes an interaction with a patient recovering from her partner’s affair. When Dr. Spring suggested considering medication, her patient raged. “I have to deal with my shattered sense of self, my jealousy, my contempt…and now you want me to take drugs? What does he have to do? Let him take the drugs!”  

When someone violates our trust, boundaries, or bodies, the wrong needs to be addressed. Denying, diminishing, dismissing, or even smoothing over the wrong only adds insult to injustice.  

Cursing prayers recognize the need to dismantle injustice.

How does this work pragmatically in reality? For example, a local school in my community covered up a violent act. Administrators and teachers worked to protect themselves and their careers. Instead of supporting hurt children, they blamed and shamed them. Imprecatory prayer asks God to expose their wickedness and not let them get away with it. It’s an honest form of prayer that refuses to pretend things are ok.  

Will praying like this create violence? Christian history is full of examples of Scripture used as a pretext for violence. Is imprecation using religious language to demonize and dehumanize?

The mentor who taught me to pray the imprecatory Psalms shared a helpful perspective. “We must learn to pray our rage out, entrusting it into the hands of God, revealed in self-giving love.”  In other words, we pray our rage to God so that we don’t display our rage on others.  

Praying imprecations can be a healthy way to prepare for justice work. In his first principle for nonviolence, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Nonviolence is not a method for cowards; it does resist. It is active nonviolent resistance to evil. It is aggressive spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.” Imprecatory prayers can transform destructive and indiscriminate rage into purposeful action.  

Being alert to the pains and injustices of our world will provoke anger. Purposeful action is needed. Learning to pray our rage may be one small step to becoming more human and more humane. On the way we’ll not only learn how to pray prayers like the one in Psalm 58 – we may even begin to see them as honest, heartfelt worship.

“Is this any way to run a country? Is there an honest politician in the house? Behind the scenes you brew cauldrons of evil, behind closed doors you make deals with demons.” (Psalm 58:1-2, The Message)

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Imprecations are the prayers of the violated. They are the cry for justice boiling over. It's one thing to complain to God about a colleague's unkind words. It's another thing to voice prayers in the wake of violence or abuse. (1/2) Share on X

As my mentor taught me, 'We must learn to pray our rage out, entrusting it into the hands of God, revealed in self-giving love.' In other words, we pray our rage to God so that we don’t display our rage on others. (2/2) Share on X