Hi my old young friend. We've missed your cynicism for a few weeks. :unsure: I don't quite know where to begin to respond, Scott, so let me just try two high level thoughts: 1 - you seem to be laying the evil of the world at the feet of a thoughtless, uncaring, or impotent God. Wrong culprit, my friend! Best to pick your enemy and use your few weapons most effectively. 2 - I strongly suspect you do not know a single Christian believer in Venezuela who is starving, but you are quick, armed with your own assumption plus your personal pain, to call on that to explain and maybe justify your cynicism. I get it, Scott. Hope gets really old!! The second most painful thing(s) in my life have been all my unrealized Rapture hopes -- my and my family's ultimate relief from all pain whatsoever. And if you put all the misery in the world, even my minor pain, your own major pain, and including Venezuela's / Maduro's evil regime of corruption and abuse into a container, you could rightfully consider it small part of Hell. I'm still genuinely sorry for all your pain, Scott. I indeed love you, bro. And I'm not trying to discourage your expression of disappointment. And God Almighty certainly does not need my puny defensive protection afforded via this website. But as a brother of yours I sincerely ask you to stop unjustly implicating and impugning our (my) Abba! Unfortunately you are stuck with this family. ybiC, Dan As well as stuck with the sovereignty of God Almighty! TR You are not the first Christian to have felt angry at God. And you will not be the last to feel the urge to blame him. We Christians can be prone, in our pain, to point a finger and raise a fist at heaven. If we believe in God at all, we should believe he is bigger and stronger than we can even fathom. Our Bibles are filled with what we might call “big God” verses. We’re told God does whatever he pleases (Psalm 115:3; 135:6), nothing happens outside his control (Lamentations 3:37–38; Job 2:10; Proverbs 16:33; Matthew 10:29), he will accomplish all his plans (Job 42:2; Isaiah 46:10; Daniel 4:35), and not even a rebellious human will can thwart him (Proverbs 21:1; Revelation 17:17). Even when others mean evil against us, God means it for good (Genesis 50:20)... We talk about God bringing trials into our lives, and God testing us, and we should. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2–3). And yet we need to be careful, as our vision of his sovereignty expands, that we not attribute something to him in a way the Scriptures do not. James himself, sensing a possible misunderstanding of his powerful rally to count our trials as joy, wants to make sure we know God is not the dispenser of evil in the same way he is the giver of good... God Himself Tempts No One In the same opening section of his letter, and just eight sentences after his now famous charge to “count it all joy,” James makes his strong and pointed clarification. God is indeed sovereign over all our trials, and uses them for our good, such that we can count them (even as we don’t naturally feel them) as “all joy.” However, he says, Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. (James 1:13–14) ....What James hopes to maintain for us in both our external trials and the resulting internal temptations is that God is never the one to blame. God is indeed sovereign over evil, but in such a way that he is never the author of evil. He is never the one to blame for our pain, but rather the sovereign one to whom we turn for help. That’s where James 1:5 comes in: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” God is the generous giver of wisdom for navigating our trials, not the one to blame for them, even as he reigns over them. James 1:16–17 has this very clarification in view: Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Jm's 1: 16 .... ....He stands directly behind every good gift (James 1:17) but not directly behind evil (James 1:13). He is the giver of every good and perfect gift, but never the author of evil.... We never have just cause for blaming him. He is always in the right. In him is light, and no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). Anger at sin is good (Mark 3:5), but anger at goodness is sin. That is why it is never right to be angry with God. He is always and only good, no matter how strange and painful his ways with us. Anger toward God signifies that he is bad or weak or cruel or foolish. None of those is true, and all of them dishonor him. Therefore, it is never right to be angry at God. When Jonah and Job were angry with God, Jonah received God’s rebuke (Jonah 4:9), and Job repented in dust and ashes (Job 42:6). ....But if we do find, as many Christians have, that we have anger in our hearts toward God, let it be said loud and clear that we should not add the sin of hypocrisy to the sin of being angry at God. Let’s be honest about our sin, confess it as such, and not rally others to celebrate it. We should never cultivate or seek to stir up anger with God in ourselves or in anyone else. Anger can be righteous, but anger with God is never righteous. Our anger with God always betrays some fault in us, never in him. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/never-blame-god Praying for you Scott that you receive healing from your difficult trials. Praying for you and that you’re able to forgive those who caused you a lot of pain. I know its hard but that is the first step to healing. Keep renewing your mind with verses showing God’s love for you and the life He has for you in heaven! Hang in there, soon the Lord will wipe away the memory of all the bad things in this life. Bless all the hearts of those precious to the Lord who suffer. He is always mindful, He is ever watchful, and He never stops gathering our tears. As our tears speak of all that hurt us, I believe there to be a twofold purpose for His gathering of them. Firstly, great are the rewards for those that overcome. Indeed the Lord shall abundantly compensate those who have suffered! Secondly, I believe that the "testimony of our tears" shall also be used as an indictment against those who caused us to weep. And for those that don't know the forgiveness of Christ, judgments shall be appointed accordingly! Jesus wept!!! Rest assured, our tears matter to Him! TR 
Life can be very hard at times. I personally had to deal with 10 years of sexual harassment in the workforce up here in Vermont and the sad part was it was coming from a so called born again Christian. He portrayed a squeaky clean image and would even offer to pray before our conference luncheon meetings. He had a split Jekyll and Hyde personality and would show his evil side when the others had appointments or took vacation. I knew upper management would never believe me - I had no proof or eye witnesses with the awful things he put me through. I kept it all to myself and just prayed to the Lord for protection. I often quoted Scripture verses out loud and then he would snap out of his evil advances. My mistake was not reporting it sooner because I kept saying to myself it hast to get better. I live in a rural area and good jobs are not plentiful and I loved my job despite facing this horrible abuse. Then when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, the stress at home and at work became unbearable. I finally told my parents and was about to resign and my godly mom said don’t do that. Let’s pray and watch the Lord fight your battles. So we did that and I filed a complaint .... typed up all the situations that occurred though the years. I handed a 14 page double sided document to upper management. Of course they didn’t believe me at first until they had a meeting with him. By God’s grace, he confessed to it all and they immediately fired him and my family and I were praising the Lord for victory in this situation. I find now I’m able to help out others through the trials I had to endure so something good did come out of it.
