Forgiving
God by Guest R.T. Kendall
The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him. —Nahum 1:7
Although we often do not see it at first—and for some it takes a longer time—all of our bitterness is ultimately traceable to a resentment of God. This may be an unconscious anger.
Some "good" people would be horrified at the thought that they could be harboring bitterness toward God.
But we often repress this, too; such knowledge is too painful to admit. The truth is, our bitterness is often aimed at God.
Why do we feel this way?
Because deep in our hearts we believe that He is the one who allowed bad things to happen in our lives.
Since He is all powerful and all knowing, couldn't He have prevented tragedies and offenses from happening?
What we ultimately believe is that God is to blame for our hurt.
God does turn evil into blessing. He causes things to work together for good.
God did not send His Son into the world to explain evil, but rather to save us from it and to exemplify a life of suffering. Jesus, who was and is the God man, suffered as no one else has or ever will.
One day God will clear His own name from the charge of being unjust, but in the meantime, we need to trust Him and take Him at His Word that He is just and merciful.
For all of us who struggle with God's right to allow evil to exist in the world, there still must be a genuine forgiveness on our part, for any bitterness toward God grieves the Holy Spirit.
God was never guilty in the first place, but because He sometimes appears to us to have been unfair, we must relinquish our bitterness and wholly forgive Him before we can move on with our lives.
Excerpted from Total Forgiveness (Charisma House,
2002).
5 comments:
Thank you for sharing! I believe we all struggle with this sometmies!I know I do at least! Thank you for your wisdom and willingness to share, it has blessed me for certain!
When my dad died I got angry with God. My family had a hard time dealing with my anger toward God. They didn't know how to handle it (I was vocal about my anger at God).
But throughout the following year God showed me that He's big enough to handle my anger. The key was that I took my anger to Him. I didn't avoid Him, I let Him know how mad I was and He showed me His love in ways I'd never before known. I'm now closer in my walk with God than ever before.
I'm grateful for that time because it has produce a great result in my walk with God.
Amen, Hazel. We all mess up and the gift of free will comes as a double edged sword. Consequences are part of God's design. The world so desperately wants to change the laws of God and nature… but chanting and spreading lies will never change the God that supplies the breath to all of His creation that He loves and is calling!
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, sister, but you inspired me!
Thanks for the reminder!
Confusion DOES occur re: our lifestyle and how it appears that the Lord has broken in a different way and we feel like we got "hit". Most of the time it's b/c He is dealing with others who are near us..family or friends or cities... and He isn't usually making us look like He's at us. Usually, I've seen the truthfulness. In our present-day world, with the huge accepted sinfulness buried all over, I'm surprised that we all are still here and still alive. But I anticipate a significant breakthrough in the next few years. I'm very concerned about a lot of people, but I can't change their focus or their mind or their actions. Heavy sigh. Trusting Him is all I can do! Thanks for sharing!!
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