Sometimes when we are angry, God is the last one we want to talk to but He really should be the first one we go to. This week, I am going to share a fictional story about how things could have handled differently, in order to teach kids how to talk to God when they just want to avoid Him instead.
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel.
We’ve spent a lot of weeks talking about Genesis chapter 4—mostly about Cain but also about a man named Lamech. The theme of this chapter might be, “How not to handle your anger.” Cain is like the poster boy for doing everything wrong despite having every opportunity in the world to do things right. He even had God reaching out to him and talking to him and telling him what to do and what not to do. Despite God’s guidance and mercy, Cain just kept moving farther and farther away from doing the right thing and everyone suffered terribly because of it. All because Cain wanted God to accept whatever he did and got angry when God refused. And we’ve all done that—make the wrong choices and then get mad when someone points it out and tells us to do better. And maybe we didn’t get angry enough to kill someone (I sure hope not) but maybe we really hurt other people who didn’t deserve it. Fortunately, the mercy that was there for Cain is also there for us, but we need to respond to God’s mercy in the right way—not like Cain, who took that mercy and ran away from God.
Have you ever wondered what would have happened if Cain had listened to God instead of ignoring Him and then going out and killing his brother? The world would be a much different place. Sure, someone would have murdered someone else at some point, but Abel would have lived and had children of his own and he and Cain would have been happy together as brothers. Adam and Eve wouldn’t have had the heartache that they lived with for the rest of their lives. God may not talk to you out loud like He did with Cain, but He still tells you what is right and wrong. Usually, when we do something wrong, we know it is wrong but we make a decision not to care. That’s a huge mistake. That’s how small sins become huge transgressions. Remember how, in the Bible, there are three words for what we call sin? In the English, that’s sin, iniquity and transgression. They are like the “small, medium, and large” categories of sins. Mistakes are different than things we do on purpose but feel bad about and those aren’t nearly as serious as things we do on purpose and don’t feel at all bad about. None of them are good but we can all see that they aren’t equal in God’s eyes either because of how He labels them in the Bible.
So, how do we keep our small mistakes from becoming huge transgressions? The answer is prayer—and prayer is talking to God and listening to His still, small voice. I’ve told you how important it is to talk to God about absolutely everything, no matter what it is. I mean, He knows everything anyway so it isn’t like you can fool Him or hide anything from Him—like Cain tried to do after he killed his brother. That’s our starting place. God is always waiting and wanting to hear from us. He wants us to love Him so much that we never ignore Him. But talking to Him isn’t enough, we also have to listen for His voice to speak back to us and when we hear it, we need to obey Him. That’s the hard part because usually He only speaks to us when He needs to tell us something that we probably don’t want to hear—like when He told Cain that his offering wasn’t a good one.
No one likes to be told that they are wrong or that what they have done is bad. We want to think that we are right and that whatever we do, it is good—but that isn’t reasonable. No one is right all the time. Not even super smart people or super nice people. Being smart doesn’t make people right about everything they think or do and being nice doesn’t mean you always do the right thing either. In the same way, just because someone is a great athlete doesn’t mean that they are going to win every race or game they play. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone believes wrong things. Everyone tries to do things that end up being a really bad idea. None of us is perfect and so one of the most important things we can learn in growing up is how to accept that we can be wrong and still be wonderful, worthwhile people. Being wrong or making a mistake, or losing a game, or failing a test doesn’t mean that we are terrible people or that we are unlovable. We may be disappointed in ourselves, but we just get back up and try again. Even when we sin on purpose and feel badly about it later, that doesn’t mean that God is done with us, we just get back up and learn from our mistakes. What we should never make the mistake of doing is get so angry about our mistakes that we blame everyone around us, or get angry at everyone, or become resentful of the people who did things right.
Can I tell you a secret? There are a lot of people who are afraid of being wrong, of losing, and of failure. Maybe there is always someone waiting to be mean to them over every little mistake, and they have learned to worry all the time about what that person is going to say or do next. People like that grow up into adults who don’t know how to deal with admitting their mistakes. They get angry and blow up a lot. Sometimes, they can’t be nice to other people who make mistakes and they treat others the way they were treated. Sometimes, they don’t even know how to do anything except notice when other people are wrong. They don’t know how to say, “Good job!” when someone does something right, or say, “Good game!” when they lose. Sometimes they don’t know how to admit when they are wrong about something and they attack the people who were actually right. Sometimes they might even hate the people who were right. Sometimes, they will even lie about the truth just so that they can try to fool other people into thinking they were right all along. I hope that you don’t know anyone like that, but if you do I want you to talk to God about it and pray for them. Most of all, I don’t want you to allow them to make you feel bad about yourself. Always be honest when you are wrong, don’t blame other people when you fail, and don’t let being wrong or failing stop you from trying again and doing better next time.
But I am also going to tell you something else about being wrong and losing. It bothers almost everyone. So, if those things make you angry, don’t feel like you are alone. The thing is that, as you grow up and become more mature and as God changes your heart, it will bother you less and less. Why? Because you will find out that God isn’t interested in your opinions always being right or if you win or not. God is more interested in you doing what is right when you know the right thing to do. Sometimes, doing what is right means we are going to lose. Look at King David. He actually had a couple of chances to kill his enemy, King Saul, but he would have to do it through some pretty dirty tricks so he decided not to do it. And King Saul was trying to hunt David down to kill him—not because David did anything wrong but because he was jealous. Later on, David did do some terrible things when he was king and God had to confront him about it and punish him, but David accepted his punishment—unlike Cain.
Today, I want to tell a fictional story, a pretend story, about what might have happened if Cain had prayed instead of sulked. Maybe it can give you ideas about how to talk to God when you are angry and hurting. Maybe it will let you know that it is totally safe to admit to God when you are angry with Him. Not like he doesn’t know, right? Now, I am going to make some assumptions about the offerings they made, even though the Bible doesn’t tell us why Cain’s offering wasn’t good. So, just know that this is fictional, made up, and not what necessarily happened. It’s okay to do that as long as we know that’s what is going on.
God smelled the fat roasting on the family altar and was very pleased. He saw that Abel had taken the firstborn lamb of his best ewe and had offered it up. God was very impressed with Abel’s faith because that lamb was very valuable. From that lamb, Abel could have greatly enlarged his flock but instead he gave it as a gift to God. God responded by blessing the ewe and next year she would have twins and she would never fail to have healthy babies. He looked over to Cain and saw that he had made some unleavened bread from some of the new grain from his harvest, as he did every year. But this year there was a problem and God frowned. God knew that was not the best of Cain’s wheat harvest. Cain had taken wheat that he didn’t really want to eat and had mixed it in with some old barley and was offering up that, and he hadn’t spent as much time as he should have in grinding it so the bread he made was very coarse. Cain wouldn’t even want to eat it himself. God could tell that Cain’s heart really wasn’t in the offering. God filled Abel’s heart with joy, but Cain felt God’s disapproval. When Cain looked over at his brother and saw the peace and joy in his face, he got very angry and threw the bread away and stomped off.
But after a while, God spoke to Cain. “Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent? If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” (Gen 4:6-7 CSB)
Cain replied, “I am just so angry. Sometimes, I just want to do things my own way and I don’t know why you are so fussy and why my way isn’t good enough for you! What use do you have for the best of the wheat anyway? I work so hard just to make enough for the family to eat and then you want me to give the best part to you—of the barley, of the wheat, and of everything! I know you don’t eat it, but we do, and we need it. It’s so unfair.”
God spoke to Cain very gently. “You do work very hard to feed your family and that makes me very happy. I am never unhappy with how hard you work. But, like your parents before you, there are things that you don’t understand about the way the world needs to work. They didn’t understand why it was important not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Serpent tricked them into thinking that I was trying to keep something good away from them, something that they needed. And they believed that; they decided that they knew better than me what was best for them. But your father can tell you, and has told you, that as soon as he took a bite, he regretted it. He knew things that he didn’t know how to deal with. But once he knew, it was too late. Once you know something or see something or hear something, you can never really not know, see or hear it. It’s in there forever and it changes you. As for you, you live in a world that I created and I either bless it or curse it—for your good. I do it to teach you to trust me so that you will learn to depend on me and only on me because, Cain, you need me. You need me more than you need your father or mother or brother and more than your wife and children will need you. They can’t bless the land or save you from what that Serpent did. But I can, and I will. Maybe not when you want or how you want, but I will.”
“Cain, have you ever noticed how much easier it is for you to grow your crops than it is for your father? That’s because I have always blessed your work. You get more barley and wheat and fruit and nuts because you have always done what was right in the past, and gave me the very first of your harvest, the best of it. So, can you tell me what changed this year and why you stopped honoring me by giving me the best?”
Cain was still looking down at the ground and kicked a rock, stubbing his sandalled toe. “It was harder this year than normal. It seems like everything was such a chore. I felt like you weren’t helping me as much as you should….” And right away, Cain saw the problem and stopped.
God replied, almost chuckling, “Yes, once you say it out loud to me, it doesn’t seen to make as much sense, does it! I am glad you are seeing the problem. A blessing is not a blessing at all if you think you deserve it. If you believe that I owe it to you for life to be easy. Cain, don’t you see? I saw that attitude growing in your heart all last season. You forgot who you are and forgot who I AM. You thought that I owed you my blessing, as though we are coworkers, and stopped appreciating what I, your Creator, was doing for you. I don’t have to bless you. I always enjoyed blessing you because I love you so much. But I loved you too much to let you keep believing what you were believing. So, yes, things were harder. There wasn’t as much water as usual, so your harvest was kinda pathetic. And I didn’t keep the bug population low and they ate some of your crop. I gave you only enough to survive on—because I don’t want you to die but I wanted to see if you would still give me the best. And Cain, if you had given me your best today, I could have multiplied the grain you had stored away, and you would have eaten much more than enough. Cain, I have always taken care of you, but I don’t owe it to you to make it easy for you. What I want is for you to trust me and when you don’t, I have to do whatever it takes to fix things. Because, Cain my beloved child, you need me and you need to trust me.”
Cain sighed and nodded, “I am sorry Lord, you are right. I was so angry and felt so betrayed—not because there wasn’t enough but because there was only just enough and I just felt entitled to have more. I have the best tucked away, and I will go back and grind it and give it to you. I will do what I know is right. Thanks for always taking care of us.”
As Cain was heading back to the granary, he ran into his brother Abel and told him the whole story. Abel laughed hard and loud. “Oh brother,” Abel roared, “Let me tell you a story that I have never confided in anyone. Years ago, we had that year where there weren’t very many lambs and the only lambs were born to our brand new ewes and so I knew I was supposed to give all of those firstborn lambs to God. But I didn’t want to. So, I hid two of them and only offered the third up to God. And He did the exact same thing to me that He did to you. It was a test and I had failed—miserably! And I was angry too—angry that I got caught. Wasn’t it hilarious that I thought I could hide those lambs? That I was fooling all of you into thinking I had offered them all but had them in another valley grazing? You all thought I was so righteous but really it was all one big lie? Well, God didn’t accept my offering any more than He accepted yours and I actually held out for a few days before breaking down and doing what needed to be done and do you remember what happened the very next year? Ten new lambs! I will tell you that I never really enjoy giving up those firstborn lambs, but I do it because I know, in my heart of hearts, that in the end God will take care of us.”
Cain laughed too. It felt good to know that he wasn’t the only faithless person on earth sometimes. That his brother, whom he was so angry at this morning, was just like him and had made the exact same mistake of not trusting God and even tried to fool him. Abel wasn’t the problem and God wasn’t the problem—Cain knew now that his lack of trust was the problem and that it was actually normal and that God didn’t hate him for it and that God hadn’t given up on him or lightning bolted his butt on the spot.
“Wow,” Cain thought to himself, “I really had God pegged all wrong. I had always wondered why He kicked our parents out of that Garden but now I see how fair He is. I see how He wants us to be honest, and trusting, even when times are tough. And when I was honest with Him, He didn’t yell at me or kill me for it. He knew exactly what was going on in my mind all along. He knew what I was trying so hard to hide from Him and He reached out to me and loved me and gave me a chance to fix everything and start all over again.”
Cain remembered the story that his parents had told about living in the Garden and about how, when God confronted them, they lied and blamed everyone but themselves. Dad blamed mom, mom blamed the Serpent. God had to kick them out of the garden because no one would own what they had done wrong. “What if I had made that same mistake?” Cain wondered. “What would have happened if I had just gotten angrier and angrier and refused to take responsibility for what I had done? I was really angry at God—what if I had just stubbornly kept doing things my own way? And I was getting angrier and angrier at Abel, thinking he was just so perfect. I was so angry that I actually thought about hitting him with a rock. Oh man, that is scary to think about. God was right, I was so angry and that anger might have led me to do some terrible things that would have been wrong. Well, this year’s harvest wasn’t great, but I will get up tomorrow and go back to work again, as usual, and ask God to bless my work instead of figuring that He owes me a blessing. I can’t believe how wrong-headed I was all this time.”
So, how different was that story from what happened in the Bible? And do you know the really great thing? We have a choice whether we are going to live out the story of Cain in the Bible or the story of Cain that I made up for you today. We can choose to sulk, get angry, hurt people, and run away from our problems or we can choose to talk to God, face up to what we have done and why, and not take it out on everyone around us. And we all go through things like this. All of us. No matter how perfect someone seems to be, absolutely everyone goes through times when they don’t trust God, where they get angry at Him and angry at other people because of resentment and jealousy. That anger and that distrust happens, and we can’t stop it from happening, but we can choose how we deal with it when it does happen.
Have you ever read the Psalms? The Psalms are like the most honest poetry ever written. Sometimes the people who wrote the Psalms are just super happy and trusting God and sometimes they are angry and accusing God of betraying them. Sometimes things are going their way and sometimes everything is going horribly wrong. Sometimes they are loving and sometimes they are asking God to kill their enemies and even asking God to bless whoever kills their enemies’ babies, which is super messed up. But that’s the kind of thing that goes through our heads sometimes—well, maybe not the part about killing peoples’ babies. I can’t imagine wanting that to happen and I bet you can’t imagine that either. But the point is that we have all of these emotions inside us and sometimes the things we think are beautiful and sometimes the things we think are very ugly and we would never want anyone to know about it—but the Psalms tell us that everyone has these kinds of things running through their heads sometimes. The Psalms tell us that we don’t have to pretend to always have perfect thoughts, and that we can be honest about those thoughts to God. I mean, if we see them in the Bible, it means that God knows that we all have these sorts of thoughts sometimes. We all get angry. We all want revenge. We all think about things that we would never ever really want to do or have happen. Because the Psalms were written to God, they teach us that God is the One we are supposed to go to when we think these ugly thing. He can handle it. He knows what we are thinking and so the best thing we can do is to stop trying to hide it from Him. If we go to Him with this, He can help us with it. That’s what He wanted to do for Cain, to help him deal with his anger and sinful thoughts.
And so, no matter what it is you are thinking or have done, you can take it to God. You can talk to Him about it and after you are done talking, just listen. Sometimes He will respond and sometimes, He just starts helping you to fix it in quiet ways by changing your mind. Sometimes He will send someone to you from out of the blue who will tell you something that is related to what you talked to God about. So many times, I will wake up in the morning and God will tell me to write something and I won’t know why but then I will get a letter or an email or a message telling me that it was just what they were praying to God about. And the funny thing is that sometimes, He will tell me to write it before they even pray. But He knows that they are going to pray and what they will be praying about. And God will find ways to help you too. Because He loves you.
I love you. I am praying for you. And I hope you have a wonderful week studying the Bible with the people who love you.