Does your heart ever become suspicious of God?
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and maybe, just maybe, you’ve been going through something… your problems pile high… you’re hit broadside with trials, coming all at once… and maybe you’ve toyed with the idea that God is against you? I’m thinking right now of a good friend named Roy. His son-in-law just got diagnosed with cancer of the larynx, the city of Toronto is buying up the property his apartment is built on, so he and his wife will have to move, and – here’s the clincher – he’s struggling against the last stages of macular degeneration. In short, he’s losing his home, his sight, and he may lose his son-in-law.
Now, I could really understand if Roy’s heart became suspicious of God. And I’ll tell you what: some people have counseled Roy that the first place he needs to begin finding sanity in all this… the first thing he needs to do is to, as they put it, “forgive God.” God has dealt Roy an unfair and heavy hand, and the first step for Roy is to forgive God for doing that.
Oh, my goodness! When I heard that, I thought, “Forgive God?” Something’s wrong with that picture. Something is backward! Where does the Bible ever direct us to do such a thing? To forgive God implies that he has done something wrong… but has he? The Bible says that nothing – not cancer nor blindness nor eviction from your home – nothing can separate us from the love of God. What do we do… forgive him for loving us too hard?
Arthur John Gossip wrote this: “Scripture says that what God is, He always is. Stand upon Calvary and know that if today He loves like that, He always loves like that – even when our hearts become suspicious or bad-tempered toward Him for His ordering of our lives and crossing our wishes. To be God means always to stoop lower by far than any man could stoop; to bear on that cross what never a human heart would dream of bearing; to give oneself with an abandon of unselfishness that leaves us staring slack-jawed in wonder. His love demonstrated on the cross is a hugeness beyond all human reckoning. It is an everlasting Calvary. Our mood changes, our emotions may cool, and for us there come dreary seasons of gray skies, but if we grasped the love of God at one time in our life, it has not changed. What we saw Him to be at one time in our life when things were better, what we saw Him to be… He still is.” Wow!
So, forgive God? Roy wouldn’t dream of it. He looks at Calvary and sees there what forgiveness is all about. And the reason Roy can do this is because he has spent so much time communing with Christ in his Word. The study of the Bible exposes every heresy; yes, even the subtle kind that says God needs forgiving. So on this National Bible Week, the team at Joni and Friends invites you to go deeper into the Word of God. And to help you, we’d like to send you a 12-page laminated foldout that will serve as a handy study guide – so small you can tuck it in your Bible for ready reference. And to get yours, just click on the radio page at joniandfriends.org and ask for your free copy. Again, that’s joniandfriends.org. And remember, friend, if you’re tempted to doubt the goodness of God, just look at the cross and you’ll find your problems will fall right within its shadow. See what we’ve got going on today at joniandfriends.org and share a few comments with me while you are there. Until next time, this is Joni Eareckson Tada for Joni and Friends.
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