The God I Keep Sulking From and Always Return To

“Some of them were ready to quit and go back to Egypt. Others just said, ‘Forget it. If this is what God has planned for me, I don’t want it.’ In spite of their gross lack of faith, God performed a miracle there on the desert sands, turning bitter waters into sweet waters.”

 — Bill Wilson, Christianity in the Crosshairs.

Children sulk. If they ask for candy or ice cream before bedtime and you say no, they don’t usually argue. Sometimes, they just…withdraw. They make those small pouted lips. Fold their hands. Avoid eye contact. Maybe crawl under a blanket and refuse to talk. Cute, and a little dramatic.

If I’m being honest, that’s exactly how I’ve treated God for most of my life.

Yeah, childish faith.

There was a time, back in 2016, when I was trying to move to the States for graduate school. Everything seemed lined up. I had admission letters. Funding plans. Travel money.

Confidence. I was pumped. I had prayed about it for months. All I needed was the visa.

I was rejected at the American consulate during my visa interview. I tried again a few days later. Rejected. Again. More than five times!

Each interview felt like walking toward a door I was sure God had opened… only to have it quietly shut in my face.

I remember coming home after one of those interviews feeling like a dry, dead autumn leaf being pushed around by the cold wind. No direction. Just drifting with lots of questions. I had done everything “right." Prepared well. Prayed sincerely. Stayed hopeful. So why wasn’t it working?

I didn’t lose my faith in some dramatic moment. I just started sulking.

Whenever something important didn’t work out according to plan, an exam, an opportunity, something I had prayed over deeply, I reacted like a child who didn’t get what he wanted.

Quietly, I would withdraw a little. Pray less. Open my Bible less. Talk less about faith. Not because I stopped believing God exists. But because I believed He could have changed the outcome…and didn’t. And honestly, that hurt.

Later in life, the pattern repeated itself.

Professional exams. Career plans. Moments where I thought: This time it will finally work. Sometimes it didn’t. And the old reaction came back. That tightening in the chest. That quiet distance.

Like a child sitting in the corner thinking: “Fine. I won’t talk either.”

You see, we don’t sulk toward someone we don’t believe in. We sulk because we expected something from them. It took me years to realize that. My frustration wasn’t proof of weak faith.

It was proof of relationship.

Looking back now, something about that surprises me. Every single time I pulled away…God didn’t. I reduced my prayers to silence. He remained steady. I stopped reading Scripture for weeks sometimes. He didn’t disappear. I sat in disappointment, convinced I had been forgotten. And slowly, without drama, I would find myself coming back.

Opening Scripture again. Whispering short prayers again. Sitting quietly again. Like that same sulking child who finally peeks out from under the blanket…and slowly walks back into the living room.

It almost feels funny now. 

Some doors never opened. Some plans dissolved completely. Some things I prayed for sincerely just didn’t happen. But I’m still here. Still talking to Him, wrestling and returning.

I’m not here writing this to tell you that I believe because every prayer worked out the way I imagined.

I believe because I’ve never been abandoned in my disappointment. I believe because even when I shut Him out for a while, He didn’t shut me out.  My faith has survived my own immaturity.

These days, I’m learning something slowly. For a long time, my faith was transactional. I thought if I prayed sincerely enough, prepared well enough, believed strongly enough, then God would arrange outcomes accordingly.

But faith isn’t a transaction. Our faith must not be based on outcomes.

God isn’t a vending machine responding to the right combination of effort and belief. He’s a Father. Patient enough to let me sulk. Steady enough to wait until I come back. If you’re someone whose prayers feel unanswered right now, I don’t have a formula. I wish I did.

I’ve tried creating distance from God when I was disappointed. It never lasted. Not because I’m afraid of burning in hell, haha. But because something in me knows where home is.

I don’t have a perfectly mapped future. I don’t understand every delay. Some days are still confusing. But I know this much.

The God I get frustrated with is the same God I return to. The God I question is the same God who has carried me through every closed door so far.  And maybe faith isn’t about never doubting. Maybe it’s about always returning. That’s why I believe.

Even though I’ve seen manna falling from heaven less often, I’ve seen His pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day guiding me, walking with me day and night, protecting me (Exodus 13:21,22).

His presence mattered. His presence assured me that everything happening in my life happens underneath Him. He is sovereign. Though I didn’t know the number of hairs on my head, He knew. The best part? He knows more about me than I do about myself!

I didn’t have to listen to the devil’s conniving thoughts pushing me toward despair or separation from Him. I didn’t have to compare my journey with someone else’s.

Like Jairus, when people told him his daughter was dead and to leave the Teacher alone, I had to hold onto the Teacher and “not be afraid and ONLY believe” (Luke 8:49,50).

I didn’t have to believe and figure everything out and make sense of it all. I didn’t have to believe and try to understand the delay.

Only believe.

Everything around me sometimes said I was failing. I know how heavy that place feels.

But strangely, trusting and believing in Him feels lighter. All I know that He wants from me now is this: childlike faith and not childish faith.

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Thanks for reading!

© 2026 Dr. Anudeep Manne. Want more content like this? Explore more articles in the Why We Believe series.

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