God can handle our mood swings

As my last post shares, I finished reading the book of Job recently, and it blew my mind.  I loved reading it with fresh eyes and seeing things I'd never seen before.

But finishing Job means moving onto another book.  And since I started (however long ago) with the reading plan of reading straight through the bible, cover to cover, the next book is Psalms.  Most people, when they think about reading the psalms, they get excited.  It's like this book is somehow better than all the rest in the bible.  I mean, Christian culture has selected it to be a part of the New Testament, basically. How many people do you know who carry around those little pocket bibles of the New Testament and Psalms.  We love this book.

Mostly though, it just annoy's me.  *Gasp in horror*  Granted I'm only six chapters in, but every one of them just makes me a little bit angry.  I've read them all before, and didn't have this reaction last time....so I don't know what's wrong with me now.

Let me explain.

Today I read Psalm 4, 5, and 6.
     Psalm 4:: Totally normal and something you would hear today.  Lord protect me, bring me peace, let your face shine upon me.  We say these things.
     Psalm 5:: What?  It'd be like if someone today prayed, God you hate evil and arrogance, so you should destroy these people over here.  They are evil.  Please, please kill them.    I know that there are people who pray things like this, but most of the Christian subculture would still look down on this ..... Um, hello?  Have you heard of grace?
     Psalm 6::  You just got whiplash from the change in attitude.  Oh God have mercy on me, for I am a horrible rotten human being.  I am in anguish and only your love can save me.  But you just said evil was supposed to be dealt with by way of destruction?  Multiple-Personality Disorder?

Okay, Okay.  I know that the psalmist didn't put these in the order we find them in our bibles.  And I know it could very well have been written by multiple people.  But the disjointedness and contradictory fashion with which these are arranged makes me angry.  It's like dealing with a high school drama queen who can't figure out how she feels about life.  My response to that kind of behavior is usually something like....GROW THE HELL UP!  That's what I've wanted to say to the psalmist these last two days.  What are you, a 15 year old girl?

But then I decided I should reflect on it a little bit, instead of just 

letting my critical first reaction be the only reaction I had.....

and, surprise, surprise, God showed me something. 

The spastic nature of the psalmist is the same spastic inclination of our hearts (or at least my heart).  We go through those same drastic mood swings in our hearts in reaction to whatever little possibly insignificant things happen every day.  The psalmist is just being honest about it with God.  And isn't that what he taught me while reading Job.  Be wholly honest with God about how you feel, that is what kept Job in the right through the whole book.  This is another example of someone being completely honest.

So, all the times I react like a 12 year old...it's okay.  Well, as long as those reactions are directed at God and not necessarily if they are directed at the people around me.  I can have extreme reactions, and even one's the people around me wouldn't approve of.  If I'm being honest about how I feel, God wants to hear it.