It’s time for another rant. My first rant was about the awful logo Baptists in Australia have. This rant is about people who sulk with God. I seem to encounter an unusual amount of people in their 40’s and 50’s who are in an extended sulk with God.

This sulk affects many decisions they make in life. The greatest tragedy isn’t that they cause pastors or other parishioners problems, but the problems they cause for their children. You would imagine that if you’re a 40 or 50-something Christian, and your kids show an interest in or even better a Christian commitment, that you would do everything in your power to encourage them and to model a functional Christian life to them.

Happily, there are many people who do this. However, there seems to be an unusual amount of people who have fallen into a sulk with God. Their spiritual life is barren, their ecclesiastical life is barely alive, or driven by increasingly shrill consumer demands. Many eventually end up being incapable of attending any church due to their inability NOT to spit the dummy at something. When you are in a sulk with God, there is no grass that is greener, there is no grass at all. You will stop at no lengths to live out your sulk, even if it negatively affects your children, let alone the wider church.

The reasons these people fall into a sulk are many and various – the connecting principle is an inability to resolve issues that naturally arise. Despite Jesus giving us a fairly clear procedure for resolving difficulties in Matthew 18, sulkers have a need to hang on to their issues. It eventually becomes a part of their identity. It defines their spirituality: “I have been wronged by …………..”.

The inability to deal with issues in a biblical manner I think comes from never having developed their spirituality further than the usual compendium of doctrines and religious behaviours [going to church, going to youth group, going to a home group, etc].

The great irony is that their children, even in nascent faith, ending up modelling what a ‘walk with God’ should look like to their parents. The kids end up carrying the can with respects to family leadership and maturity.

That, even though the sulkers don’t realise it, is their punishment.  Spiritual maturity seems to have a ‘use it or lose it’ dynamic to it. When they don’t take it up it passes on to the next generation, and they become the ones in need of ‘care’ by their children.

The need for pastoral diplomacy prevents me from delivering the remedy: “GROW UP – YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES!!! YOU HAVE ABDICATED YOUR GOD GIVEN RESPONSIBILITY OF SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP – NOW GIVE ME 500 PUSH UPS YOU MISERABLE LITTLE SULKERS!!! AND WHILST YOU’RE DOWN THERE, BEG GOD’S FORGIVENESS FOR SULKING ALL THESE YEARS!!!!!”

Wow!, that felt great!