We’re not supposed to worry…but how can I not worry about getting fired? About having enough backup funds to take care of my aging parents.
God just seems angry and upset with me all the time
To the extent that you have negative stuff, such as job problems, going on in your daily life, God isn’t “zapping” you with those out of anger or upset or anything else. They’re happening because of some earthly cause, whether it’s an economic problem at your employer that is causing them to downsize, or some ability in yourself that you need to develop, or a mismatch between your skills and the job/ the boss/ etc.
Try thinking of them as challenges that are happening in your earthly life apart from God. Look at practical ways you yourself can address the issues. Ask God for his help and insight to overcome the challenges. Ask him to work with you to overcome them.
I’ve had my times when I felt God didn’t love me, but it was more because I just felt like a piece of junk, self-esteem wise, for some reason. When stuff was not going well for me at my workplace or in my personal life, it never occurred to me to blame God and say, “God is doing this to me” or “God is not helping me”. My response is generally to try to see from a practical standpoint what is going wrong and what I can do to fix it. For example: look for a new job assignment or a new employer, break off with the person who is constantly causing drama in my life, go back to school for more or different training, change the way I am approaching my work, etc. If you are doing something to try to help yourself then God will work with you on that. Also when God closes a door, He generally opens a window to some other path which in my case has usually been better - for example, laid off from a job I didn’t like, I got a new better one, though it took a while.
I don’t think it’s a helpful mindset to relate your practical challenges, like work, to your “sins” and relate all this back to God. When you’re a baby learning to walk, you fall down because you’re still developing your skill of walking. You don’t fall down because God doesn’t love you or because you sinned. If the baby next door is walking at an earlier age than you, it doesn’t mean God loves the next-door baby more. It just means you take a little longer learning to walk. The same for every practical challenge in life.
Instead of blaming God, ask Him to help give you insight as to how you can address whatever issues you have with your work, co-workers, anxiety over caring for your parents, and any other challenge. Say, “God, I’d like to better meet this challenge, help me go about it” and then take whatever practical steps you need to take to address the problem.
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