I know that at first glance it seems like almost heresy to consider forgiving God. However, we need to remember that to forgive someone is an act of letting go of our anger, disappointment, mistrust, etc. on the basis of our own perceptions. It does not necessarily mean that the person has sinned against us. Sometimes it is only by offering our forgiveness to someone that we are free to explore what actually happened to rupture our relationship.
Try as an experiment the following:
Think back on the past year of your life and jot down a list of those experiences that have been frustrating, incidents where people have angered, betrayed, diminished, or disappointed you. This exercise alone can have some curative value.
Next, with the list before you, risk living out an aspect of your faith that you have undoubtedly preached — that God is sovereign. What might it mean that while God may not have deliberately set up those experiences, God was not absent from them. Taking a particularly difficult circumstance from your list, ponder what redemptive possibilities might exist in that experience. If we were to “forgive” God for leading us into this temptation, how might we come to a point where we might allow it to contribute to a larger wholeness in our life.
This is not an easy thing to do. It may require lots of prayer and reflection to come to a point where we can praise God for a particularly difficult experience. That experience might seem all encompassing, like a congregation that does not seem to respond in any positive manner to your ministry or a powerful family in the church who seems to do nothing but complain. However, if we believe that God can make even the cross into a redemptive possibility, is it not possible that God can allow the power of the resurrection to be transforrmitive in your circumstance as well.
It might be that you will need to begin with a smaller disappointment or irritation to begin with and then work up to some of the more difficult ones. After you have worked with an incident for awhile, it might be helpful to invite a friend or spiritual advisor to listen to your reflections and help you explore their meaning for your faith journey.
This could be part of an important step in your theological journey.
