Word for Today, Angry, Yet Forgiven
Posted by: masinick <masinick@...>
The message that follows is quite long compared to the typical devotional message, but it is a personal story by Ron Schwartz. I suspect that every one of us, at one time another, perhaps even now, is angry with someone. Have you ever been angry with God? Be honest now. We know that God is in control of all things, so when things do not go the way we hope, plan, or expect, are there not times that we question God, or even blame God, for the circumstances that we are currently facing?
I have wanted things different on many occasions. Even now, my real heart's desire is to simply be with the Lord for the remainder of eternity, yet the Good Lord says, "I have work for you to do and you are not finished with it yet, and I am not finished working on you".
I have to say that I have questioned, but when I come to my senses, as Ron did in his story,
Forgiven!
Perspectives from the Storm
By Ron Schwartz
[email protected]
http://www.ronschwartz.net/Thoughts.htm
January 8, 2009
First of all, I want to thank everyone for the countless notes of encouragement and for all the commitments to pray for my wife. Your support and consideration is humbling. What shocked me the most was that along with the encouragements came note after note of dreadful stories describing many similar experiences. It was both encouraging and heartbreaking to know that I was not alone. The storm is truly breaking on God's people.
What makes my wife's affair particularly hurtful is to see the effect that her immorality has had on our children. She met with our children before leaving and tried to explain the rationale for her affair. She told them that she was unhappy and said to them, "I've spent the past 20 years making you happy. Isn't my turn to be happy?" Our oldest son (David) asked her: "how am I supposed to process this? I'd like to get married someday, but what if my wife decides that she needs to walk out on me to be happy? What parameters am I supposed to use in finding a wife? Think about what you're doing. You're telling me that it's okay for me to abandon my family if it makes me happy."
Our girls now question all of the values, standards and principles their mother taught them. But perhaps the wisest pearl was spoken by our youngest son. He told her, "Mom, you're not choosing between Dad and [your boyfriend], you're choosing between God and [your boyfriend]." I write this not to villainize her, but to help you understand the extent of the great damage that is done.
It was hard to accept my wife's departure, especially since it was not under duress. The morning before she left (she told us her decision to leave the night before), we lay together and cuddled for hours. She wasn't angry. She was simply trading me in for another model. I still remember embracing her tightly in my arms and crying knowing that it would be the last time I would hold her. I still remember the confusion I felt toward God.
What made matters even worse is that we had just move a thousand miles away from everyone we knew no more than one month before she decided to leave. We were quite alone. There was no family or friends in whose arms we could find comfort. It had seemed that we were completely hedged in.
As days passed, it became exceeding difficult to adjust to the fact that my wife had abandoned us for a married man, especially since there are hundreds if not thousands who are praying for her, and yet she remains completely unmoved. "Why?" I'd ask. "Why doesn't God seem to care? If not for me, why does He not intervene in response to their prayers?"
I don't blame this on God or the devil because I recognize that what happened was my wife's choice and she is responsible for her actions. Even so, in my heart I knew that God allowed these events to unfold and that all this was for a higher purpose. My friends encouraged me to talk about it but instead I found myself avoiding them because it brought me so low and caused such depression whenever I would speak or even think about my ordeal.
Then one long lonely night between Christmas and New Year as I talk with someone about my relationship with God I was asked, "Do you have a problem forgiving?" I immediately blurted out, "just with God. I find it difficult to forgive Him." I was shocked at the words that came from my mouth. "Is it really God with whom I am bitter?" I asked myself. "Is the animosity I feel truly directed at God instead of my wife?" I've always seen God as my protector and shield, so why was he letting me down? Why was he refusing to help? Had He now became my adversary?
Later that night as I drove home down a long lonely country road, I turned the radio on and I noted that it was not on a Christian station but on a station that played holiday music. Friends who know me know that I never listen to anything but Christian music, so this was a change in behavior and I knew it. This realization surprised even me. Once again, my own words echoed through my mind: "just with God. I find it difficult to forgive Him." Could it be that I had subconsciously switch channels to avoid listening to music that praised God? Was it a subtle form of rebellion? I switched the channel to a Christian station and began to listen to praise songs. Soon a very familiar praise song began to play. It was a song that I often sang with to worship my Savior, and yet I noticed a wall immediately went up around my heart. I could not bring myself to praise God as I so often had in the past. It was true, I realize. I was angry at God.
It was then I broke down. A flood of emotion poured out of my heart. "Why?" I asked, whispering through my tears. "Why take my wife? Of all things, why take away my happiness? How could you be so unloving? How could you be so cruel and have so little compassion? After all I've done for you, how could you take from me the one thing in this life that brought me happiness?" These words had barely left my lips when I was forced stop at a red light. I noticed the license plate of the car ahead: FORGIVN. "Forgiven," I heard myself read the license plate out loud. Then God spoke to my heart very clearly. "I can understand how you can be angry with me and doubt my love for you. After all, all I ever did for you was to die for you." Like a dam bursting forth I began to cry. How could I have been so selfish? How could I ever have doubted Gods love and compassion?
If God would give His only Son to die for us, is there any limit to His love? God suffered the loss of His Son. Did I care about His feelings, especially since it was my sin that caused His Son's death? What about God's happiness? Was there any room in my heart or concern for His? And yet I somehow expected God to care and intervene on my behalf. It wasn't that I wanted God to care. I simply expected it. To me, God had failed because he hadn't loved me enough to make me happy. I began to understand that there was something much deeper to God's love that He wanted me to understand. It was something that my happiness kept me from seeing.
There is a song out called "By Your Side" by Tenth Avenue North. It is an amazing song. The words are as follows:
Why are you striving these days
Why are you trying to earn grace
Why are you crying
Let me lift up your face
Just don't turn away
Why are you looking for love
Why are you still searching as if I'm not enough
To where will you go child
Tell me where will you run
To where will you run
(Chorus)
And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you
Look at these hands and my side
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world's sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life
I want to give you life
Cause I, I love you
I want you to know
That I, I love you
I'll never let you go
Since that lonely night I've began to realize that sometimes, when we need God's love the most, we're unable to appreciate it because we've never really experienced it. Intellectually, we know God loves us, but have we really felt His love? We have so many other things in our lives that provide us love and happiness. Sometimes these things keep us from really knowing what it is to experience God's love. Consider this carefully.
We feel accepted and forgiven, but do we feel that way because God forgives and accepts us or have we simply experienced forgiveness and acceptance through God's people and attribute this to God? Do we feel God's love, or do we merely enjoy the happiness of this life and attribute it to God? When everything is torn away, when all the happiness in this life is gone, when no other consolation can be found, do we still feel God's love? Does it shine through in brilliant clarity? If not, perhaps we've never really experienced it. Perhaps we've simply attributed the happiness of this life to the love of God.
Genesis 22:2-14
Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."
Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you."
Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?"
"Yes, my son?" Abraham replied.
"The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"
Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together.
When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!"
"Here I am," he replied.
"Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided."
I realize that this story is extremely over used, however, it is so fitting. It wasn't until Abraham gave up that which he treasured and loved the most that he was able to see the great sacrifice of God in the bush. Sometimes God removes those things which we love the most because they are the things that fill our lives with love and fullness, and in doing so get in the way of us truly understanding and experiencing God's great love.
Have you suffered great loss and misfortune? Have you been able to see with clarity God's great love and kindness through it? If not, perhaps you've never really ever experienced God's love, because when everything else has evaporated away, His love is all that is left. When all our hope is gone, God's love remains. When all love is lost, God's love abides. When hurt, pain, misfortune, and heart ache replace the peace and tranquility of our lives, God's infinite peace and abounding love is everlasting, because God's "love never dies (1 Corinthians 13:8)." Like the song says:
And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you
When God removes the things we love the most, perhaps it so that for the first time in our lives we see, know, and understand God's great love for us. That is why it is important when our hearts are broken to turn to God for comfort. If we run from one lost love to another, we are running from the experience that God is trying to get us to come to understand: His infinite and abounding love. No other love can compete with or compare to it. It is ever present with us, if we'll simply surrender ourselves to it.
So there it is. Sometimes, when God has no other way to get us to comprehend His love, He must allow us to be wounded the deepest. God reveals His love through hurt and tragedy. True happiness comes through the greatest sense of sadness and true love through the deepest sense of grief and rejection. It is a paradox indeed.
Over the years, I have found one way or another to bless most of my friends. At the same time, I've taken pride in the fact that I didn't need the blessings of others. After all, is it not "better to give than to receive"? And yet, my friends have all complained to me about this very issue. "Brother Ron, you make it so very hard for anyone to bless you," they'd say to me. Yes, I knew that and I wanted it that way. I never wanted to allow myself to be in anyone's debt. But is it possible that I had the same attitude toward God? Is it possible that I was so self-sufficient that I would not even accept God's help? Could my pride have been such that I would not even accept His love, save He force it upon me? Did He have to break me to get me to accept His love? Perhaps!
I am now a broken man, complete with a broken marriage, broken hopes, and broken dreams. I now need friends like I never have before, and yet I find myself alone. I've been marginalized. Is it possible that my pride has brought this all upon me? Could it be that in my pride, I didn't fully comprehend and appreciate the sacrifice of Christ and thus the great salvation that He bought for me? Could it be that I've resisted God's love?
I still do not understand all the events that have fallen on us these past few months, but at least I no longer live questioning God's love for me. I just have to trust Him and thank Him for intervening in ways that I will someday understand. I must thank Him for loving me enough to clear my vision to get me to see His love.
As we leave this Christmas season, there are those of us which are in pain and sadness, and we sometime doubt the love and compassion of God. If you are one of those who will find it impossible to be happy this season, perhaps you should visualize the "cross" instead of the "manger." Remember, the "tidings of great joy" ultimately brought about one on the most horrific deaths any man has ever endured. If this season has been sad for you, just remember that it was also sad for God, because when His son was born (as a gift to this world), God knew that He would eventually need to allow this precious baby to be tortured and die. When you think of God's love in this context, is it possible to doubt His love no matter what adversity you face?
My wife has not changed. We have no indication that she ever will, but we will continue to pray for her. The children and I have resolved in our heart to set aside our anger and let her go. We can only hope and wish her the best. For me, I can now thank God for His goodness, and offer praise for His bountiful compassion.
I want to thank each of you who have prayed and continue to pray. I want to thank the one who chose to bless us. May God reward you for your kindness. Though my heart is far from whole, I can at least once again thank God for His love, mercy, and kindness. I do love you all. God bless you, my friends.
Ron Schwartz
100 East 10th Street
El Dorado, AR 71730
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· More messages can be found at: http://www.ronschwartz.net/Thoughts.htm