I Should Forgive God?

September 28, 2015

Have you thought about any places where you might be angry at God?

Have you ever taken any action on that anger?

I sure did. I remember several times when I vented at Him. Where I blamed Him for not doing a good job with my life–after all, He was supposed to have good plans for me! (Jeremiah 29:11).

Did the venting and raging and tantrum-throwing help? Maybe a little. It did release some tension. And at least I was honest, rather than pretending everything was just fine. He knew better, anyway!

Later, my counselor encouraged me to forgive God. And yes, I’ve thought and heard this lie plenty of times, too: I can’t forgive God because He’s sovereign. If something’s screwed up in my life, I’m the one who did it wrong.

This is a simplistic reply to a complicated emotional response.

It’s true–God is sovereign. He can’t do wrong. He does love you . . . truly, deeply, purely.

But we judge Him, all the same. We demand to know this: if He’s all-powerful and all-loving, why didn’t He stop ____ (fill in the blank)?

So, Bruce and I took God “to court”. If you didn’t read my blog series on forgiveness, I’ll recap for you. A very powerful method of forgiving is to first realize and admit you have judged. We don’t want to believe it, but we know inside we did it.

Accept it and move on.

After that, we set up a courtroom in our mind. Doesn’t matter what it looks like . . . it’s your court.

We call the defendant to the bench. In this case we call Father God. He is the defendant. (Chances are good that you won’t be able to see what He looks like. No problem. An outline or an emotional impression will be enough.)

We list the charges we have against Him. We tell Him the charges are real and painful to us, but we choose to forgive Him (this may sound arrogant, but He knows your heart. You are simply releasing your anger through forgiveness). We read the charges aloud again and individually declare each is forgiven–again, for our own benefit and clarity.

We admit our court does not have the authority to judge Him. (I think we all know that!).

We declare He is forgiven and release Him. (You are free to go.)

We adjourn our court, get down off the bench, take off our robes, and approach God. Sometimes we might feel as though it’s Jesus or Holy Spirit, but they are all in the Godhead.

This next step calls for humility and a step of faith. We stand right in front of God and ask if He will forgive us for judging Him. Then we wait for the answer. What is His reply?

Once we internalize the truth of His forgiveness, we look at Him, and put Him on according to scripture (Romans 13:14). We step into Him. Once there, we ask if He loves us, and wait for the answer.

Finally, we realize He is the one who created us, redeemed us, and loves us even through our sin of judging.

Forgiving God is for your benefit, not His. In that aspect, it’s just like forgiving a person . . . they receive little benefit, but we receive a lot.

We are released from the anger that’s been tearing us down–maybe for years.

And then we can stop judging ourselves for that anger.

this is part 5 of a series on anger at God

Part 1| Are You Mad at God?