Remember when you were young
And you would be by yourself
Either out in the yard
Or alone in your room
And you would talk to God
About what you were thinking
Or feeling.........
Remember how
You would talk on and on
And He would listen.....
You asked Him to make things happen....
Some of them did
But some of them did not......
You were disappointed in God
And you felt very hurt by Him.....
Because some of the things you asked Him for
That never happened
Were very important to you.....
And you could not understand
Why they had not mattered to Him
When He knew they mattered to you so much.....
You grew up......
And as the years went by
You talked to God less and less
You thought about Him less and less
And you filled your life
With everything you could find
With everything that made you happy
With everything you thought you wanted
Except for Him.........
And now here you are
Looking back on all that has gone before....
And sometimes when you are all by yourself
Either out in the yard
Or alone in your room
You miss Him...........
You want to talk to Him
About what you are thinking
Or feeling.........
You want to talk on and on
And hope He will just listen.......
You want to tell Him
That you forgive Him..................
For disappointing you.....
For hurting you......
All those many years ago.
You want to give God another chance
You want to trust Him again.
You want to know if you still matter to Him.....
Or if you ever mattered to Him.....
And deep in your heart
You have come to realize
That it is time to forgive Him...........
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 90
I know what you are saying, but thankfully, I never felt that I would ever need to forgive God, but that He should forgive me. I probably asked for things that would not have been good for me, or things that, if given, would cause hurt or harm to another human.
I trust Him to always make the wisest of choices for me and when to answer my prayers with what I have requested. But sometimes, the disappointment is hard to swallow even then.
Great poem, BERF, ratings off?
I thought of it another way and still do, that He can always say no, and if he does, there's always a good reason, even if I don't agree or understand it and yes, I still talk to Him.
Marilyn
I have drifted away from God before. But I would ask him to forgive me for drifting from him. Sometimes when we ask for things he gives it to us in his timing not ours. Its never our timing and sometimes people think it is. God knows when its the right time. Even if we get upset about it.
unanswered prayers sometimes are for the best, and i still talk to "Him" daily!
That's beautiful, Berf.
I am glad at some of the unanswered ones!
God puts up with alot from me. Do you know what brought me back to him?? Ready the book called "The Shack". For me this put God and Jesus into prespective for me, and I realized how much I needed them back in my life. Even tho there are many times still that I dont talk with him daily, I know he is there.
This was a beutiful poem Berf. Thanks for sharing it.
The Book The Shack MOVED me. It was wonderful. Wasn't it an amazing book on forgiveness and God's neverending love??
I understand the poem completely. When I was little all I wanted was for my parents to stay together and stop fighting. It didn't happen but God knew better!! He sees the beginning from the end and we have no clue.
Good and sincere one, dear BERF...
Blessings and best wishes - S.
Very touching and I am sure it applies to most of us.
WOW! Berf your poems get better & better ...
when are you putting your poem book together?
Beautiful write BERF...I am off to read another one. I hope you just keep on sharing with us, I do love your prespectives.
thanks for sharing
That's profound. I'm going to read it again... maybe a couple more times.
This fools errand to continuingly try God's patience only shows a total lack of humility before God...it's a terrible thing to fall into the hands of a wrathful God. My advice to you is stop being a show-off and cease and desisit from provoking the Lord. You need to repent and come before the Lord for His forgiveness, instead, of trying to shock with outrages statement.
I implore you...seek the Lord's forgiveness.
How many have you turned back to the Lord recently, Felix??....
BTW: Berf - I must agree --- about the pointing fingers --- I learned at a very you age not to do it - or at least point with the whole hand and all the fingers -- 'cause every time you "Point your finger at someone else... there are usually at least 3 (three) pointing back at you!" And of course we all most criticize those things in others, that we detest in ourselves.
O.K. I'll get off my soap box now. :-)
I suggest you all do the same before someone else gets killed.
Steiph Z. I believe you have a point when you said man has created God in his own image, because all too often there are those who think they no more than God and like to believe they have more control than He does, whom obviously you don’t even believe exist. How can you expect to understand the existence of something with an already judgmental and closed mind by using words of mockery? To use a defense like the burning of innocent children’s bodies being burned by the napalm bombs in Viet Nam is below the recognition of a remark, though I will still pacify you with one. You look like a man of age who perhaps served in the Viet Nam war, as many precious souls have including my brother. Too often we are reminded of that tragic and shameful era in American history, but it gives no cause for the disbelief in a divine creator. The toast comes out burnt if you leave it on the fire too long, it’s far past time that people really do need to wake up and taste the truth before its too late for them to. I don’t serve a THING CALLED God, but a super natural being that gave you and me the breath we breathe, and controls the power to give or take that away. He so chooses to give life rather than take it, as man chooses the opposite through the mass killings of our many soldiers in there man made wars. Man is who treats humankind like the pawns on a chess board that monopolizes each piece to his own gain regardless of the cost, not God who could take it all in the blink of an eye. I sometimes wonder why He puts up with His creations that are down on Him so wrongfully. God doesn’t put the cigarette to the user’s mouth or cause you to breathe its devastating effects. He does not put the gun in the hand of the murderer or cause the disease that kills so many aids victims; He doesn’t tell the bankers of the World Bank to fund the wars that takes the multiple of thousands of human lives, yet He gets the blame. I ask an atheist one time, “What do you think would be the last words you would say if your car was run off a high bridge into freezing water”, you know what he said, “I would probably say, oh my God”. Why do you suppose he would think that? He spent much of his time trying to convince me that there was no God much in the fashion you speak of, and I tried to convince him otherwise. I suppose I didn’t try hard enough because he decided to find out for himself by committing suicide, or that’s what the police said. He had talked about it with me before, but I didn’t think he was serious, I once commented to him and asked, “If you were to do that and you found out God is real, there would be no way to come back and be forgiven”. Now you tell me, wouldn’t it have been better had he tried to find evidence to see if God is real, rather than to disprove Him and reject the thought? Now he is gone and has proved nothing to no one, but now he knows the truth, and he can’t come back to tell it. Being human, we don’t like to take anyone’s word for it, so we perish in our own ignorance. This is scary when you think about it. Yes, too often we do point out the faults in others that we don’t admit is in ourselves. God Bless, Nancy
I'm sorry, but I do not buy into your hell-fire and damnation view of God.
When you say "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God," you make it sound like it is a fearful thing to fall into God's hands at all.
When has your "Repent-Or-Burn-In-Hell" religiosity ever brought one lost soul into the reality of God's love?? Or His mercy? Or His forgiveness??
I have never met this angry, impatient, and quick-to-punish God of yours.
My advice to you is to stop equating God's temperament with your own and thinking that He judges people as quickly and as harshly and as incorreectly as you do......
I implore you....aim your pointing finger back at yourself.....
It's not something to debate about people!
This is the expression of Berfs heart. This is the expression of the love Berf has in his/her heart, which is love, and it was wonderfully written.
God is love! "The greatest of these is Love".
I had to go back and read all the comments, seeing your last on Berf. I know what you are talking about. With me it was more of a question of why...why was I getting so beat up all the time, why couldn't my parents be happy with me, etc.
At some point we realize that some of the things we wanted were not granted because they might not have been wise for us to have. All I know is I suffered at the hands of my parents and I received the ability to have compassion on others. It was a great lesson in forgiveness and unconditional love for me to move to Florida in 1997 to help and later to take care of them at the end of their lives. I can see the good that came out of what happened. Many times when I do a testimonal about my life people cry and can't believe I never blamed God and they are astounded with my love for the Lord. But you see, many did not survive what I went through...and I did. When people hear my story about my parents they can see that forgiveness of even the worst, can be possible. Without it happening how could others see how my story applies to them, how can they weight my words if I didn't know their pain and struggles too?
Our God is an awesome God. I would not change one day of my life, because each day of my life led me to being who I am, today. God has been able to use me to help others and that makes it worth it all.
I think Felix just doesn't understand that God is a loving God who accepts us as we are. He is interested in our hearts. He will bring all things in the area of right and wrong to us through the Holy Spirit. He just wants and opportunity which he gets through his son Jesus to help us avoid the pitfalls of sins and laws and death. God knows we will sin, but he wants us to go to him for help and guidance not to. He knows we can't be perfect or make this world perfect and that is the point. If we could do that we wouldn't need Jesus to wash away our sins with his blood.
Have patience with Felix, not everyone on this path with God is in the same place. I feel bad for him that he doesn't understand the love of God. You were not mocking God in my eyes. If people are mad at God, until they forgive him in their hearts they will never go to him....forgiveness leads to a relationship with God, relationship with God can make all things clearer and we can understand we need his forgiveness...and understand that he sees the big picture, the top of the tapestry, not the strings and knots we see from underneath. That is what faith and trust is all about, knowing that God has his reasons, he knows things we don't.
God Bless You Always, Heather.....
And Thank You So Much............
We need to remember that even the 12 apostles Jesus Christ chose for the spread of His message turned out to be each with a different trait. And out of them He loved one more than the other but still loved them all in equal measure. Is this not a mystery which we humans will never understand? Is it not a mystery how Judas whom Jesus Himself chose to be among 12 got in to the clutches of the devil and betrayed his own master?
I see different perceptions, but all leading to one only fountain of love – “Jesus Christ & His teachings”.
We cannot argue much on many of the issues which are in one way or the other a mystery for us humans. Was it possible for Satan to take Jesus to the top of the temple merely to tempt Him? How did Jesus manage to chase the tax collectors from the temple, as Felix states? It all lies in the faith of each one of us.
Mark: 4
5. Some seed fell on rocky ground where it found little soil and at once sprang up, because there was no depth of earth; 6. and when the sun came up it was scorched, and not having any roots, it withered away. 7. Some seed fell into thorns, and the thorns grew up and chocked it, and it produced no crop. 8. And some seeds fell in to rich soil, grew tall and strong, and produced a good crop; the yield was thirty, sixty, even a hundred fold. 9. And He said, ‘Anyone who has ears for listening should listen’.
I'm not talking about hell-fire...I'm talking about the here and now. Don't say you weren't warned. Quickly...no, I think He's been rather patient with your' incessant offensive belly-aching. I'll not bother you any further.
Forgive God...what chutzpah. You are going to forgive God because of His love. What you need is an Aladdin's Lamp so you can have your own little concierge genie to service your' every whim. Bye-bye.
Heather, do you really think God need's this confused, self-centered person's forgiveness? You're the one that doesn't understand.
Berf, you remind me of that old serpent in the Garden of Eden always sowing doubt in the mind's of others concerning God...oh, wait...thems just myths.
That's interesting, Felix.......
Because that is precisely what Christ reminded the self-righteous Pharisees and Sadduces of......
"What does it mean to say that God is a God of wrath?
A simple definition of wrath is “an expression of anger and judgment.”
God as an angry, judging God doesn’t jive with a lot of folks. This side of God absolutely goes against their views and beliefs.
Think about the pictures of Jesus that we’ve all seen. How is He portrayed? He is gentle. Smiling. Hair flowing in the breeze. A lot of times He’s holding a child or a little lamb. Don’t get me wrong…Some of those depictions accurately display some of Jesus’ character traits. He was gentle at times. He loved kids. But overall, when you consider all the pictures of Jesus you’ve seen, it’s easy to come away with the idea that He was a wimp.
The people of Jesus’ time didn’t look at Him as a wimp. The guy was a blue-collar carpenter. Moving heavy beams all day probably meant that Jesus was ripped. Carpenters weren’t wimps.
And what about the time that Jesus practically tore the temple apart? He walked in and saw the people using God’s temple as nothing more than a marketplace, and He went ballistic. He flung the tables over and chased them all out of the temple. One guy chased out an entire crowd. You think the people Jesus chased out of the temple thought he was some long haired, pacifist, gentle hippie? I doubt it. They received a taste of the anger and judgment of a wrathful God.
Check out these Scriptures. “He unleashed against them his hot anger, his wrath, indignation and hostility—a band of destroying angels.” (Psalm 78:49, NIV)
Look at the key words used to describe God’s wrath—hot anger, indignation, hostility. It also says that God released “a band of destroying angels.” Wait a minute…I thought angels were beautiful creatures that flew around on silky wings, played harps, and sang when the baby Jesus was born on Christmas Day? Definitely a different picture here, huh? God unleashed his angels in wrath; they are warrior angels; destroying angels. We’re definitely knocking down some of our preconceived ideas today.
Look at the way Jeremiah describes God…“The Lord is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King. When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath.” (Jeremiah 10:10, NIV)
There is nothing like God when He is angry. The most violent earthquakes, powerful hurricanes, and devastating tsunamis cannot compare.
One more Scripture. This picture is one of the most graphic and vivid descriptions of God’s wrath in the Bible. It’s from the book of Deuteronomy.
“There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand. I lift my hand to heaven and declare:
As surely as I live forever, when I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me.
I will make my arrows drunk with blood, while my sword devours flesh: the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders." (Deuteronomy 32:39-42, NIV)
I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t exactly make me want to gather around a campfire, hold hands, and sing “Kumbaya.” This is not a huggy, snuggly, comforting side of God.
Look at how God is depicted in this Scripture. He has a “flashing sword that he grasps in judgment.” He will “take vengeance on his adversaries” and “repay those who hate” him.
There will be so much carnage that his arrows will become “drunk with blood” while his sword “devours flesh.” That’s descriptive.
What is the overall picture of God here? He is a warrior. He has an arsenal of weapons and he’s gearing up for battle.
This is not a side of God that we talk about very often. And for some of you, it’s challenging and stretching your view of God. You expect to come here and learn about God’s love and gentleness and grace. And so you show up and you hear about a God who unleashes hot anger, who has a bunch of destroying angels, who causes the whole earth to tremble, who is a warrior with an arsenal full of weapons. For a lot of us, this is not the God that we’re familiar with. It’s not the God that we’re comfortable with. But for us to discover what God is really like, we have to talk about this. God’s anger and wrath are part of His nature. It’s a part of who He is.
There are some things that we need to understand about God’s anger and wrath. God’s wrath is always justified. It is always right. It’s not an out-of-control temper tantrum or fit of rage. God’s wrath is right and justified.
John MacArthur said, “God’s attributes are balanced in His divine perfection. And they are perfectly balanced. If God did not have wrath and God did not have anger then He would not be God. God is perfect in love, on the one hand, and He is equally perfect in hate, on the other hand. Just as totally as He loves, so totally does He hate.”
Again, we’re allowing God to bust out of the box that we’ve put him in. For a lot of us, hate is not part of our God paradigm. Hate and God would seem to be opposite in every way.
But the Bible says differently. This verse in Hebrews is talking about Jesus. And it says that, Jesus, “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness…” (Hebrews 1:9, NIV)
See the perfect balance there. God is the perfect balance of love and hate. And what he hates stirs up his wrath.
There is only one thing that God hates. One thing can trigger God’s wrath…sin. God’s wrath is always and only a response to sin.
Most the verses we’ve used so far about God’s wrath have come from the Old Testament. And there seems to be this prevailing thought that God was this mean, grumpy old codger in the Old Testament. But he went through an anger management course, took some Prozac, and mellowed out in the New Testament.
God has always had a perfect balance in his nature. His grace was evident in the Old Testament. His wrath is evident in the New Testament. Look at this New Testament verse.
The Bible says in Romans, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…” (Romans 1:18, NASB)
The wrath of God is revealed against ungodliness and unrighteousness. In other words, sin.
Sin is what God hates, sin is what stirs his anger, and sin is what unleashes his wrath. God’s wrath is his justified response to sin.
And because his wrath is a justified measure against sin, then God makes no apologies for his wrath. All you have to do is scan the Bible. There are more Biblical references to God’s anger, fury, and wrath than there are about his tenderness, kindness, and love. God is not ashamed about this part of his nature. He makes no apologies for his wrath. And we don’t need to apologize for it, either.
It almost seems like, as God’s people, we feel some need to soften God’s wrath. As a general rule, we don’t sing about it in worship. We don’t preach and teach about it. We don’t talk about it in conversation. And when the wrath passages from the Bible do come up, we try to explain it away. We make some kind of apology for it. We wish it wasn’t there.
But we don’t need to defend God or apologize for God about this. It’s part of who he is. It’s part of the perfect balance of character.
We talked earlier about how Jesus cleared the temple in a rage. Did you know that this was his first public act in Jerusalem? His ministry in this great city hadn’t even begun, and so what is the first thing he does to gain a following? The first thing he does to start his crusade? Makes a whip, throws over tables, shouting and threatening people, sending them running for cover. In our minds, this is not the way you make friends and influence people. But Jesus didn’t care. He was furious because of the people’s irreverence, their dishonesty and extortion… in other words, their sin.
This is one reason why Jesus would make a lousy politician today. He didn’t issue a letter of apology after this incident. He didn’t post a statement of regret on his website. Had he offended people? Sure. Did he care? Nope. Because his wrath was a justified response to sin. It’s a part of the just and right nature of God.
...
Our view of God should change when we learn about His wrath. We should have an attitude of respect for God. We should have a reverent fear of God.
The Bible tells us that, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…” (Psalm 111:10a, NIV)
You can’t begin to have wisdom, you can’t begin to have understanding, you can’t begin to see life clearly if you don’t reverently fear God.
In his book One Home At a Time, Dennis Rainey says, “God is not feared today. In fact, He is mocked by our immorality, our treatment of unborn human life, our broken commitments, and the selfish, ‘me-first’ attitude that characterizes so much of what we do. Even in the Christian community, we are strangely silent about the fear of God. There is little teaching on judgment for sin, and the place of eternal torment called hell. We haven’t rejected God. But we have conveniently recreated Him in our image. We have reduced the Almighty to our level.”
God’s wrath should change my view of God.
Secondly, God’s wrath should change my view of sin. We learned earlier that sin is the only thing that can trigger God’s wrath. We need to apply that truth in our lives.
Bob Lepine writes, “Today there is such an emphasis on God’s great love for us that we have forgotten what it means to fear him. We don’t see him as a consuming fire, but as a kindly grandfather who chides us when we are mischievous, but always with a twinkle in his eye and only a faint sternness in his voice.”
Don McCullough writes "We prefer to imagine a deity who happily lets bygones be bygones, who winks at failures and pats us on the back to build our self-esteem."
As God’s people, we can’t just take a wink, wink, nudge, nudge approach to sin. That’s not the way God sees it. Sin stirs his wrath. But a lot of us have cheapened it. Since we know we’ll be forgiven for our sin, we just don’t think that sin is that big of a deal anymore.
...
In the cross, you have the full brunt of God’s wrath and the full extent of his love. God’s justice and wrath demand that sin must be punished. There is no way around it. There’s no escaping it. Sin must be punished.
And yet, in the greatest act of love and grace of all time, Jesus took that punishment for us. He died, taking the punishment of our sin, so we didn’t have to. He endured the full force of God’s wrath so that we might be spared that same fate.
Which means it all comes down to this. “All who believe in God’s Son have eternal life. Those who don’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life, but the wrath of God remains upon them.” (John 3:36, NLT)
You have a choice. You can choose God’s love and grace or God’s anger and wrath. Jesus chose to take the punishment for you. And he’s pitched the ball into your court. You get to choose the grace gift of Jesus or the wrath of God.
A couple of Scriptures to complete the contrast. Hebrews 10 says, "Falling into the hands of the living God is a terrifying thing.” (Hebrews 10:31)
For entire article: http://www.ameliachurchofchrist.com/content/view/194/68/
I think God does have a other side to him but I think he is for the, most part , understanding. He understands when we are angry . I think we all are angry at the lord sometime in our live.
Here we need to accept the fact that our faith and reliance need to be placed more on the teachings of Jesus Christ after His birth rather than digging in to the Old Testament which was the book of faith for people who were not fortunate to receive the message of Love from Christ Himself.
I'm not being self-righteous...why don't you take your' doubts to the Lord in prayer rather than spreading them around like some sort of insight. Where do you come off forgiving God?
I read more than just the red text...I read the black text, also.
Try reading the entire Word of God.
Who are we to say we literally forgive God? There is a time we may feel God is at fault for something that happened, or to blame Him for such, but this does not warrant us to believe we need to forgive Him, although we temporarily may feel so, and that doesn’t make us such a terrible person because our minds are not open to fully understand every situation at that particular moment. It is when we truly believe God needs our forgiveness with a clear mind that it becomes offensive and wrong. He is the master, we are the student, and those who believe they are above that are doomed to fall. Have you ever just looked at the clouds, the magnificence and magnitude of there power and beauty, how they just hang up there in the sky and slowly pass on by? Levitation, by the power of God! Have you ever just watched the wind blow through the leaves of a tree, or watched as it picked up particles and debris in swirls from the streets? Anti-gravitational pull, by the power of God! Have you ever witnessed the birth of a newborn baby child? The gift of life, by the power of God! How awesome, how totally and undeniably awesome. What do we have to forgive God for? Now, don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe sometimes we feel that God needs our forgiveness, but in actual reality He never does. As I have said often times before, our human nature is to blame, and when a grave devastation occurs God fits the bill, though He is not the cause, He once again becomes the sacrifice. God Bless, Nancy
So, swallow your camel and strain your gnat, Felix.......
There are people out there who are hurting.....who are angry and bitter towards God.
And regardless of whether you approve or disapprove of my "showing off" or "provoking God's wrath" by suggesting that they should "fogive God," what matters more than anything else is that they are reconciled once again to Him.
People who are angry, bitter, and hurting must sometimes forgive God first before they can allow Him to forgive them.
I am sorry that you are incapable of comprehending this simple fact.
Furthermore, is the God that you believe in so small and petty that you think He is incapable of understanding this fact as well??....
You really should stop transposing you're feelings to others by generalizing them:
You were disappointed in God
you felt very hurt by Him
Why they had not mattered to Him
You talked to God less and less
You thought about Him less and less
You want to tell Him
That you forgive Him..................
For disappointing you.....
For hurting you......
You want to give God another chance
if you ever mattered to Him.....
You have come to realize
That it is time to forgive Him...........
I, for one, have never even had a hint of any of these feelings...quite the opposite. I've never been disappointed in God...I'm always disappointed in myself. I've never felt hurt by God...never. My relationship with God has always been toward the more and more, not in the less and less. The forgiving God thing is whacked out irreverent. I've always known that we all matter to God. Giving God another chance...outrages.
You say 'you'. Well, try saying 'I'.
"I, for one, have never even had a hint of any of these feelings...quite the opposite. I've never been disappointed in God...I'm always disappointed in myself. I've never felt hurt by God...never. My relationship with God has always been toward the more and more, not in the less and less."
Well, Felix, I am certainly glad you have isolated your problem.......
God does not need your' forgiveness for anything. We are the ones that have to ask for forgiveness.
I am sorry that you are incapable of comprehending this simple fact.
Not being disappointed with God's merciful and gracedul actions toward me; recognizing only good coming from God; knowing that He has never hurt me nor would He hurt me if I didn't rightfully deserve it; and the fact that I have grown closer to God...rather than the opposite. This you consider a problem...okay.
Wow, Berf...I think a lot of people will see themselves in this.
Honest, deep writing.
Felix, so if you are going to throw scripture around...why aren't you sacrificing like it was said to do in the old testament?
We don't sacrifice because we have Jesus. All the sacrificing led up to the ultimate lamb, the blemishless (sinless) sacrifice. What happened in the Old Testament led up to this...just like Passover and the blood of a lamb over the door way. It is all about the blood, and Jesus's dying on the cross.
Jesus came to save the sinners not the self righteous. You may want to read a Bible that has what Jesus said in red ink and read what he said...and only what he said. He said "You may have heard...."
I would suggest you pray to the Lord and ask him to guide you as I do. He wants people to be reconciled to him. Read "Christianity is Jewish" by Edith Schaeffer and you might get a better understanding of the Bible.
My children were 3 and 4 when they were kidnapped by my ex husband and his boyfriend of 3 years and brought interstate. You think I didn't wonder why God would allow that to happen? According to my daughter who told me as an adult both her and her brother were molested when with him.
Although I didn't blame God, I blamed myself for meeting my ex at an ice cream parlor, I went suicidal. It's a long story but God sent me back to my life. I had to learn to live and go on. It took me two years to get my children back.
God has forgiven me for what many consider the worst sin you can do. I am deeply indebted to Jesus, however I do understand why people would blame God for things and forgiving him, would lead to a relationship with him.
God allows things to happen, and he also gave us free will, but it is hard to comprehend why he would allow a newborn baby to die right after birth, or suffer with cancer or die.
Many terrible things happen on earth and unless you realize the reality of Satan you will blame God.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 reads, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
you are thought provoking,beautiful write up
I talk to God more and more now...not so much as a kid. Sometimes I have little patience but must remember that things don't always happen as I may expect them too. Very good write, Berf.
very nice poem
great poem i give it a ten
our god is okay with us being angry at him , disapointed with him even if it should be the other way around. He is forgiving and understanding
This was a good read . BERF, very interesting. I still do talk at God and he does give me answeres (just not always). I am a strong believer in God. I don'y feel I need to forgive him. We have argued, but he always wins.
Have a great day.
Considering what we thought and believed as "innocent children" and then through living life and making the circle back to the things we believed as "innocent children" I have come to believe that believing as innocent children is the way to go since only coming to Him with the innocence of a child will be acceptable.
I loved your poem. Tugged at my heart. Thank you.
Perhaps you know this story. Rabbi Elimelech got tired of watching his students competing for his approval, so he decided to teach them a lesson. He told them that even though they were studying and fasting constantly in preparation for Yom Kippur (when they would beg G-d to forgive their sins of the year), they were going about it all wrong. He said the model of behavior on Yom Kippur was a poor tailor who could hardly even read and write.
So the students watched the tailor, who was pious enough, but nothing seemed special about him. They tried talking to him, but he didn't know anything about the holy texts. He was decent man, but ignorant.
Still, the rebbe had spoken of him with admiration, so they continued to observe him. They went so far as to follow him home and spy on him after the evening service that begins the Yom Kippur observance.
He sent his family to bed and sat quietly for a time. Then he took two sheets of paper out of a closet and began to speak to G-d.
"Look G-d," he said. "It's time to make an accounting of all my sins. I have written them down. I cheated my neighbor when I bought cloth from him last year. I spoke very rudely to my father-in-law at Passover." And he continued to read his sins out slowly from one page, stumbling over words here and there.
When he finished, he picked up the second sheet of paper. "Also," he said to G-d, "I have written down Your sins this year. You promised to protect us, but this year You allowed the Czar's army to kill two of my neighbors who were traveling on business. You allowed plague to come among us, tearing even babies from the arms of their parents." And he read out the second list, item by item.
When he was finished he just sat a moment. Then he sighed. "The truth is, Your list of sins is longer. But let us make an agreement to forgive each other -- we will forgive You and You also will forgive us." And with that, he put away his lists and went to bed.
The only way I can truly feel close to God is to ignore most other people's opinions of Him? It? Whatever? (in my world, God is beyond him, her, it . . .)
I don't get into the rights and wrongs of what God is or how others expect me to experience and communicate with God and there is no religion that can tell me what I must do to be close to God.
I have forgiven God a million times and 'It' always thanks me for it because God understands me. Also, I'm sure that God can accept the fact that I don't understand the complexity that is God, so I am forgiven by God as well.
My relationship with God is pure freedom. A freedom of which I could never hope to experience with anyone else. I can experience any emotion, good, bad or indifferent and know that God completely understands 'the big picture'.
For me, God goes way beyond parenting or friendships. There is simply nothing on this earth that compares to the bond I share with God. Getting mad at God is a sacred part of the process of evolving.
And people that can express their TRUE feelings about their relationship with God are little goldmines of humanity.
If God is just, there is nothing to forgive. If he's not just, I don't forgive him. Of course he could torture me into saying I forgive him, but that would just make me a liar. But if saying it is all he cares about, then he could get that out of me easily. He has convinced me to my satisfaction that he can torture me into saying anything. But when the torture subsides, I always seem to revert back to reality - integrity that is. Somehow I can't help but think integrity is where he wants me to remain.
and I love god... but I undstand what your say and feel you...
I didn't think there was anyone out there who felt like I do.
I have come to love the Lord more the older I get and rely on Him because I realize more and more that even though I as one of His creations comes and goes on whim and desire as humans do He is steadfast and Always there. Never faltering always answering but sometimes not as I would like but then what I like is not always best.
Poem is perfect
The Need to Forgive God?
I found no offensive wording in your script, only that we need to realize God does not bring ill tidings upon us; rather we create the situation for its happening. I lost a son at the age of thirty-nine years young in the late fall of 2005. It was a sudden and unexpected loss to us all. One night you are setting around talking to your son/brother, and the next day you feel his cold, stiff body lying upon his bed that only hours ago was warm and full of life, blood rushing to the heart that no longer beats. I realized I would never hear his loving voice or see his beautiful unique smile on this earth ever again. I was told that at the funeral I did some really weird things concerning his departure, I don’t remember it to this day except for short blurs and that will be four years ago this November. Yes, there is a moment, a time in everyone’s life that they feel the need to forgive God. If you deny this you are not only committing a sin by telling a lie or God has never put you to that test to where you were at the point of total and all hopelessness. There are some people God puts through certain test, where others will never go, as He did with Job. The bible doesn’t say, but I imagine there were several times that Job felt like God had turned on him and he too accompanied the feeling to forgive God. Though God does not need our forgiveness for we are so much lower than He, we do need Gods forgiveness. God loves us so much that He created us in His own image, His image. Wow, that’s some strong love. He could have created us to look much like the other animals, but no, that wasn’t good enough for Him. We are special creatures, and even though we have the human tendency to say “I don’t love you anymore, or I hate you daddy”, these are only part of our human weakness’s we need to overcome, not an abominable sin because we may think, or say it without any real truth. When you loose a part of your flesh and blood that you carried and nurtured throughout its life, you can’t imagine the words of grief, sorrow or any other words to describe how you feel. When my firstborn was so suddenly taken away from me, I was so torn up, well, I don’t remember much for the following three months thereafter, and even now find this excruciatingly painful to compose, but I know God has a purpose and reason for everything that happens. When your parents catch you up in doing something wrong or bad, you are disciplined for that, and parents, how many times have you said “the more you tell them no, the more they are going to want to do it”? God may remove His temporary protective hedge of protection from the presence of someone because they are not following Him, or do not support Him, or even may need them as an example, (we are suppose to be His servants) but He never turns head away from His creations, not to the point He has forgotten us. Tell me, those of you who are parents, when your child is hurt or in desperate need of something, would you not do your best to help him/her? And when you, yourselves were the son/daughter did you not ever get so mad at your dad/mother to the point of thinking, “I can’t stand him/her, or he/she knows they’re wrong? If so then you opened the door to feeling you needed to forgive dad/mother for that. We are only human, and sometimes our thoughts might go ramped for a time, but we know in our hearts that it is us who needs the begging of forgiveness. We know better than to do things that wrong, that is not good for us that may offend or hurt someone else. Our earthly father will forgive us how often? How much more would the Father of all forgive us even more? Remember, HE created us in HIS image. Yes, sometimes we feel the need to forgive God, but it is only momentarily and in the human nature to feel that way, we know the need is for us to forgive ourselves and to trust in and accept God through His forgiveness of our own sins. For those of you who have never felt the momentary need to forgive God, well, maybe your time is coming to experience something you would never have dreamed could happen to you. God forbid, but He knows best. Never say anything that might fall back on you; a humble heart is more valuable than precious stones. This has been a very good read, and worthy to be posted as there are no doubt many people who have shared these same feelings. Thanks for sharing.
God does not create the disease of cancer or any other illness upon this land. He gave us a land so beautiful and uncontaminated. It is man who has created the devastation of suffering through his desire to have more, do more, and want more. Our modern way of living kills more people than ever before, even through chemicals we are not aware of. Cigarette smoking, alcohol, drugs and the list goes on and on. these are things man has created from the goodness of the earth God gave to us to live on. Mass poverty, deaths, homelessness, and the many more that are man created, not by Gods hand. Yet so many people use the phrase "Why did God let that happen" so loosely and without thinking. God didn’t create the wars, the famines, the droughts, and the many more manmade problems and sorrows. Our own greed is the slayer of the majority of mans death through the production of our own hands. We just love our stylish life and don’t want to sacrifice giving any of it up, so we continue the use of aerosol cans, toxic fuels, food additives, drugs, cosmetics, pesticides, and the many more MAN made chemicals that kill and lame. Cigarette smoking, we know it causes heart disease, cancer high blood pressure and more, but the use of its deadly toxins continue to kill and rob the love of loved ones, further inducing health problems for them through depression, high blood pressure, anxiety and so on, its effects not only kills its user, but harms those physically and mentally that are around them. For those of you who say in biblical times “Well, we have always had some diseases like leprosy, venereal deceases, and so on”, these deceases were noted to originate mostly in the Middle East, in Egypt where the exercise of prostitution was offered to gods as worship, thus spreading even more diseases’. Deaths of thousands of warriors/soldiers left to rot on the grounds causing leprosy and other unwanted deadly ailments. Even in our modern world today there is people who would rather hold to a cow’s tail in worship rather than to seek nourishment from its being. I could go on with this but there aren’t enough pages to hold the defense in Gods honor for blaming Him of our selfish, indicative, short comings. God does not tell the terrorist to run there airplanes in buildings or plant bombs on people so they can kill even more people, but He does say to love one another even as I have loved you, to forgive one another, not kill, lame or seek to destroy that which He created. My mother was holding my three and a half month old baby brother in her arms when he drew his last breathe. Did she blame God? No, it would be idiotic, and senseless to blame God of something that our own selfishness and unawareness has caused us to loose. He died of man created disease when it was in a rage in the nineteen-forties. Who will dare to blame the God who gave you life for all this worlds illness’s and deformities? Before you so carelessly speak in that manner, you need to have a little talk with Jesus and make it right. Study, don’t just read the bible. “God said to study to show your self approved”. Don’t take anyone’s word for it, not mine, not this article, do the research yourself. If one doctor told you that you are going to die of a certain disease and there is no help for you, would you accept it or do more research to see if they’re isn’t something you can do about it, maybe he’s wrong, maybe there’s a drug he doesn’t know about that will help you? I know I would and in fact I did, but that’s another story. I hope someone has been enlightened by these truths concerning the God of all gods. Thank You, Nancy
I believe that God gave his only son, where he died on the cross for my sins.
These are my truths and there are others out there that believe the same.
I believe I should accept everyone as my brother and sister, regardless of what they believe. Acceptance of others and respect their belief system is what I strive for. It is so important I strive to understand all peoples even though some of them want to kill me. Knowledge is power, and it's the struggle to find truth that makes my life worth living.
This is a beautiful poem.
Blessings to everyone everywhere.
I can't remember what exactly was said, (A little blurry minded last night) but I thought a good article would be on God's judgment & why or why not people believe there will be a final judgment. I'm just interested in hearing what people do with all the judgment verses that are in the Bible when they are focusing on God's forgiveness.
Well . . . gentle debate :) I mean we could ask each other how they deal with such and such :)
Not for fighting ... just for each to lay out a short idea on how they deal with the two sets of teachings; His judgment and His forgiveness.