Is God Being Mean to Me Right Now?
If you’ve known me at all in the last 15 years, then you’ve probably been witness to a flop era or two. (Perhaps most notably my 2015 and 2020 depression chops, respectively.¹) But in all these eras of not getting the thing I most wanted or felt like I deserved, watching someone else get it, or having it to myself only briefly, I’ve been left empty-handed and wondering, Is God being mean to me right now?
And also, Why are all the good things happening to everybody else but me?
These thoughts are oversimplifications, obviously. In a lot of ways, so many people around us are also having A Bad Time. Finances and health struggles and uncertainty and anxiety are taking up a lot of space in a lot of our heads. And I still don’t have a good answer for the bad things that happen to us or the unhealthy patterns we keep finding ourselves getting stuck in.
There have been many seasons in my life when I’ve just had to ask God—and my friends—Literally, why? Like, was it all for funzies? Perhaps a lil powertrippy treat? Did He just decide that He was done being nice and patient and loving and kind?
Or were all His wonderful attributes suddenly reserved for someone else who’s more deserving than me?
All of these thoughts were very me-centric—and I recognize the selfishness required for one to assume that the God of the universe has really just decided to go with a better candidate as far as His faithfulness is concerned.
It’s the heresy for me.
I have an old journaling Bible from 2015 that I recently upgraded.² I don’t know. Carrying around the margin notes, highlighter markings, and sticky notes from young-adult me began feeling too cringe for 30-year-old me. I’ve spilled coffee all over it, and I’ve had its cover rebound. And while I don’t ever feel the need to refer to its misguided insights anymore, it’s still a prized possession of sorts³—full of hard-won wisdom and relics of all my sad girls past. I’ll never get rid of her, but I’m more than happy to leave her on the shelf.⁴
On its first page, a younger version of me inscribed the words of 1 Samuel 3:18. It’s honestly so bleak, but these were the words spoken by the priest Eli while reckoning with the impending judgment upon his sons for their grievous sins:
“It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.”⁵
I copied these words down as an indictment of sorts, a resignation to myself that God can literally do whatever, and I’ll just have to deal with it. Forever.
And like… technically, sure.
But also… isn’t there supposed to be so much more to this faith thing than that?
And if I want the gospel to be beautiful to the people around me… shouldn’t I find a way to view Him just a lil differently?
Do I really believe that all His good things for me have run out—that the Good Giver has suddenly gone out of business, just up and left town? That my problems are now too big yet also somehow too niche for Him to be willing to sort out for me anymore?
My decision to make Eli’s words my life verse was half a decade before so much of the real drama of my life would really start ramping up. Somewhere within that new era, I switched my chosen sad-girl passage to Habakkuk 2 and 3, which are still lowkey kinda bleak but with some undeniable sprinkles of hope peppered in there.
I, much like the prophet Habakkuk, have really spent time asking God why so much bad stuff was happening in my world while people who were so obviously in the wrong seemed to be having a much better time. Like… surely there was a mix-up, right? God wouldn’t deal me a suckier hand than them, right?
Right?
Me and brother Habakkuk were both unhappy with the situations we seemed to be stuck with. And also unhappy with God’s mode of operation there within our own respective times of turmoil.
(Just a note: Mine was way less dire and deserving of your screen time than his was.)
But Habakkuk was willing to wait it out. That’s the lesson I’ve stuck with, and I’m still sticking with it today:
I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint. —Habakkuk 2:1
I mostly love that this passage gives me license to complain about my present tense. (I’m lowkey always giving persistent widow⁶ in my prayer life. I just know you’d be so annoyed with me if you were the Lord.) But this passage also tells me to wait with my eyes peeled for whatever’s coming next. There will be some sort of response to the questions I’m posing, to the grievances I’m expressing.
God tells Habakkuk that His answer might seem delayed to us, but that whatever He’s up to is still worth waiting for. He reminds His people that “the righteous one will live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4).
It takes a sincere act of faith to believe that God sees us and hears our prayers—that He can use even the most horrendy of circumstances to accomplish something good within us. Even if it’s a painful journey to the other side.
It takes trust to hold fast to the idea that a good and loving Creator hasn’t thrown us into the deep end without a way out of the messes we’ve gotten ourselves into. It takes conviction to believe that the people walking alongside us—those committed to following and fellowshipping beside us—can help us carry the weight of our burdens and bad vibes so that we don’t have to carry them all alone.
I still don’t have that many answers. Not for my friends who are navigating miscarriages, the loss of their loved ones, or the loneliness of life in the present age. I don’t know why our relationships can be so grueling or why I so often know what I should do yet still just… don’t?
There’s no clean, cute Sunday school response I can share for all these complex scenarios we’re all walking and wrestling through, but I do still believe that God is being kinder to us than we tend to give Him credit for. And not in a dismissive, things-could-be-worse kinda way, but through the gritty, white-knuckled assurance of someone who’s experienced divine goodness and knows that the well couldn’t possibly have dried up this early in the game.
There’s still so much more to come.
All too often, I take the bait of linking God’s character to my own elusive sense of contentment. But when my eyes are on myself and all the nice things I want for my life, everything else seems a bit lacking. But God hasn’t rigged and orchestrated the whole universe to revolve around my deluded perceptions of sufficiency.
Both the good times and the bad will inevitably find their way to me, but, as I always seem to forget, seasons change, and my current reality isn’t an accurate—or even logical—portrayal of how things will be forever.
Joy can still exist alongside my sorrow,⁷ even on days like today, when it feels so hard to believe.
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. —Habakkuk 3:17–18
If everything were to keep on sucking forever (which it won’t!!!), there’s still joy to be found on this side of the cross.
Keep watch at your post.
And let me know what to bring for when I come sit there beside you.
¹ 2025 me was marked safe from a shoulder-length bob!
² This Bible is the replacement for the one I got earlier in college (when journaling Bibles were all the rage), but I lost it in 2014 when I was in New Orleans for a Relient K concert 🥀
³ Other prized possessions include the framed flowers my sister gave me from my wedding, my signed copy of Beth Moore’s memoir (!!!), and my Tecovas from high school bestie Kaite. 😌
⁴ It’s also got a couple of sermon notes from ministry leaders who have fallen from grace—like what am I supposed to do with that?
⁵ Obviously, high school Christian Tumblr and college-era me were ESV girlies, but I’m now mostly in my CSB era
⁶ Luke 18:1–8
⁷ Your assigned homework for Mrs. Caskey-Stayton’s class is to read “On Joy and Sorrow” by Kahlil Gibran. (It’s a one-minute read, so you literally can’t complain!!)
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