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Forgiving God

11 February 2007                                                  See also  Healing blog

“I’ve forgiven him many times, but I still feel hurt and angry. Why can’t I forgive him?”  Many of us know about this question. It is a dilemma. We try to put something out of our mind and it keeps coming up.

Part of the solution is to see that it may not be about forgiveness but about anger. Anger is normal, and often legitimate. But in some cases our anger feels wrong. Especially when it is anger towards a parent. Not only do we feel angry we also feel guilty. Maybe we feel we are being unfair. Maybe we feel if we express our anger to our parents they will be hurt – and more dangerously that they will not give us the love or affirmation we want.

The dilemma escalates when we discover that we are angry with God. Can that be right? Are you allowed to be angry with God? Many people do feel angry with God – whether it is allowed or not – because they feel he has let them down, or not helped them, or caused something bad to happen to them.

Part of the dilemma is that if we stay angry with God (and want to punish him) how will we get any help from him?

Again, as we discussed in an earlier blog, we need to separate the accusation from the anger. Our rational mind says God does not do things that are wrong, so we can decide to not hold that accusation against him.

And then we can deal with the hurt and anger. Both Job and Habakkuk complained to the Lord and asked him for a response.  They described the terrible things that were happening to them, and asked why, and what was God going to do about it. We too can do that.

But as we do, we may find, as Habakkuk and Job did, that the Lord meets us. That we see a little more of his glory, and a little more of our own darkness. That we see that he loves us and has never abandoned us even though we thought we were alone in a dark place. And we find that there is hope, that he walks with us even through the valley of the shadow of death. And we find that he pardons us as well. That although he had reason to be angry with us, he does not stay angry.

We got angry, wondered about forgiving God, and met the forgiving God instead.

Dale

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