I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. —Job 7:11

To call God and us unequal partners is a laughable understatement. And yet by inviting us to do kingdom work on earth, God has indeed set up a kind of odd-couple alliance. God delegates work to human beings so that we do history together, so to speak. Clearly, the partnership has one dominant partner—something like an alliance between Microsoft and a high school programmer.

We know well what happens when human beings form unequal alliances: the dominant partner tends to throw his weight around and the subordinate mostly keeps quiet. But God, who has no reason to be threatened by us, invites a steady and honest flow of communication.

I sometimes wonder why God places such a high value on honesty in our prayers, even to the extent of enduring unjust outbursts. I am startled to see how many biblical prayers seem ill-tempered. Jeremiah griped about unfairness (20:7-10); Habakkuk accused God of deafness (1:2); Job conceded, “What profit do we have if we pray to Him?” (21:15). The Bible teaches us to pray with blistering honesty.

God wants us to come to Him with our complaints. If we march through life pretending to smile while inside we bleed, we dishonor the relationship